


This is what happens when monsters fall in love

by huxology



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hate to Love, Kylo and Hux are not very nice people, M/M, Slow Burn, but they fall in love anyway, no cats were harmed in the making of this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 54,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6084252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huxology/pseuds/huxology
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What have you done to my cat, Ren?” Hux said, a dangerous edge to his voice.</p>
<p>Kylo flashed Hux a smile, all sunny sweetness. Casually, he said, “That filthy animal? I found it in my room again, peeing on my helmet. So I flushed it out of the airlock.”</p>
<p>Said filthy animal was currently curled up in a corner of Kylo’s room, snoozing in a pile of Kylo’s ratty old cloaks, furry little tummy fat from the milk Kylo had stolen for it, but there was really no need for Hux to know any of that.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>[Kylo decides to play a mean-spirited prank on Hux after Hux offends him for the latest time. The man is a cruel, mass-murdering monster, so Kylo feels little remorse for lying to him about the death of his beloved pet in order to teach him a lesson. However, when the prank goes a little too far, Kylo finds himself beginning to reconsider how he feels about his so-called ‘most hated enemy’.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

This is the story of how Kylo Ren (kind of, sort of, maybe) stole a cat.

 

\---

 

Kylo was just about to cut into his steak when he heard the laughter.

Contrary to popular opinion, it wasn’t exactly that rare for laughter to be heard in the Officers’ Mess aboard the Finalizer.

The officers of the First Order were known for running a tight ship, tolerating no breaches of discipline whatsoever from their subordinates. However, in the privacy of the officers-only canteen, they frequently relaxed enough to engage in idle chit-chat amongst themselves.

Kylo, of course, cared nothing for their extremely tedious small talk and gossip. As the leader of the Knights of Ren, he existed beyond the petty hierarchy of the First Order’s commanding officers; all their pitiful attempts at politicking and jockeying for power were beneath him. However, sound carried well in the mess hall and more often than not, Kylo was forced to listen to their meaningless prattle during his mealtimes, even though he always eschewed their company, preferring to sit by himself at one of the tables at the far end of the mess hall.

Today it seemed that Hux and his sickening little entourage of adoring flunkies were in high spirits about something. Kylo could hear Hux’s baying laugh from across the room. The sound was extremely grating.

Kylo despised Hux. The man was absolutely insufferable. Kylo often wished that Hux would fall out of an airlock and die. He knew the feeling was mutual. Probably the only reason why Hux had rescued Kylo from certain death when Starkiller Base was destroyed was because Supreme Leader Snoke had expressly commanded it. Hux certainly liked to gloat about saving Kylo’s life—the general took every chance he got to remind Kylo about it. The only thing keeping Hux from lying on the floor in several pieces was the knowledge that Snoke still found Hux more valuable alive, for some strange and unfathomable reason.

Thus, Kylo was forced to tolerate Hux’s presence… and his incredibly annoying laughter. Privately, Kylo mused about the benefits of destroying a few more control panels with his lightsaber, to make Hux’s life just that bit more miserable. It would serve the bastard right, for spoiling Kylo’s quiet enjoyment of his meal.

“Oh yes, of course I heard about it,” came the silky tones of Hux’s voice, snide and filled with arrogance as usual. He was entirely too fond of the sound of his own voice. Kylo didn’t know how Hux’s underlings could stand to listen to Hux always pontificating on. But then again, they were a bunch of slimy little kiss-ups.

“Pitiful business. That poor, pathetic weakling—to think he struggled so much.” Kylo heard Hux’s disdainful snort of laughter, loud even from across the room. “If he can’t even handle something as simple as this, he should just pack his bags and leave now. A real leader should be made of sterner stuff. The First Order is no place for weaklings.”

Hux’s toadies made appropriate noises of agreement. One of them said something, but Kylo didn’t quite catch it.

Hux spoke in reply, “Yes, you’re entirely right, Michaels. But sentiment is a failing in men like us. Only the weak can afford to love. People die at our hand all the time. What does it matter even if they’re family?” Hux let out a derisive little laugh, before continuing on in the same mocking tone, “And he dares to call himself a leader? He’s nothing but a _whiny, overly-emotional crybaby_.”

And Kylo saw red.

How dare Hux? How dare he sit there and laugh at Kylo? Judge him like that? How did Hux even know about it— all the nights spent meditating, reaching out to the dark side, trying to overcome his damnable weakness, but failing, always failing, his thoughts always circling back to that single, terrible moment, and the shameful evidence of his weakness, sliding down his cheeks—

Before he even knew it, he was standing right in front of Hux. His lightsaber was in his hand, the blade ignited and crackling furiously, pointed straight at Hux’s throat.

“Take that back!”

Hux’s group of toadies shrank back in alarm, almost as one. Hux himself was staring at Kylo in wide-eyed shock, but after a moment, his horrified expression morphed into one of indignant disgruntlement.

“Have you gone completely mad, Ren?” He eyed the lightsaber with an expression of cool distaste, and if Kylo wasn’t utterly furious, he might even admire Hux for being able to remain so unflappably and disdainfully nonchalant in the face of mortal danger. “Put that thing away. You could take someone’s head off.”

That was the whole damned point. Kylo growled low in his throat. How could Hux just sit there, cool as a cucumber, acting like he hadn’t just loudly and calmly insulted Kylo in front of all their subordinates?

“What you said about me,” Kylo gritted out, “Take it back. _Now_.”

“What I said about you?” Hux’s brows knitted into a frown and he stared owlishly at Kylo for a moment before abruptly comprehension dawned on his face. “Wait. You thought I was talking about _you_?”

Hux actually _laughed_. The fucking bastard actually dared to _laugh_.

Looking at Kylo with a mixture of amusement and incredulity, he said, voice pitched low and slow as if he was speaking to a child, “Ren, we were talking about _Hawkins_. Didn’t you hear about it? The fool just executed his son for betraying First Order secrets to the Resistance. He broke down crying afterwards. It was just _painful_ , how pathetic it was.”

There was a swooping feeling in Kylo’s stomach. He let his hand fall, lightsaber switching off with a small hiss. Kylo had made a mistake. They hadn’t been making fun of him after all. Nobody had insinuated that Kylo was a weakling.

Except maybe Kylo himself.

A smirk had slipped onto Hux’s face. “You thought we were talking about _you_?” Hux laughed again, pityingly, and somehow it was even more galling than when Kylo thought that Hux was deliberately insulting him.

Hux continued, in an almost pleasant tone of voice, “Then again, I guess I did forget that you’d also killed a loved one recently. Supreme Leader Snoke told me about your great achievement. Killing your father. Congratulations on finally joining the big boys’ club, Ren. You’ll find that we don’t really believe in playing charming little games of _love_ or _family_ around here.”

Chuckling, Hux began to turn away, already returning his attention to his colleagues and his half-eaten meal. A careless, unspoken dismissal. The words, “Go away, Ren,” weren’t said, but Kylo heard them in Hux’s snide voice anyway.

Shame burned in Kylo and he had to resist the overwhelming urge to reach out with the force and tear Hux’s throat out. He tried to tell himself his voice wasn’t hoarse as he said, “Han Solo was no father of mine.”

“If you say so, Ren,” Hux said, smiling pleasantly, and Kylo hated how patronizing he sounded. He almost wished that Hux would contradict him outright, just so that Kylo would have the satisfaction of arguing back, instead of this infuriating, smugly-knowing faux acquiescence.

“It was easy,” Kylo found himself saying. Perhaps he was speaking too loudly, from the way his voice echoed around the suddenly deathly silent mess hall, but Kylo found that he couldn’t stop. “I didn’t feel a thing when I killed him. Except maybe happiness. I was _happy_ to be free of him. He was a traitor and the enemy, and even if Supreme Leader Snoke hadn’t ordered me to do it, I would have done it anyway. Gladly.”

“Yes, yes. How lovely. I’m happy for you too. You’re a cold, merciless killer who doesn’t feel a thing except joy from ridding the world of an old fool, who may or may not be your estranged father. Would you like a medal for that?” Hux laughed, and his lackeys laughed along as well.

The rage was an overwhelming, red-tinged haze that threatened to take over Kylo’s vision.

“Stop mocking me. I’m not— _weak._ ”

But he was, wasn’t he? Just like Snoke told him he was. And Hux knew it. Him and all his flunkies. They all knew it. They were all laughing at Kylo.

Hux let out a small, put-upon sigh. His voice was infuriatingly even as he said, “Look, Ren. Nobody said that. Except perhaps yourself.” He paused for a beat before continuing, “You know what the problem with you is? You care too much about things. About people. About what others think. You put on all these tawdry shows of emotion. Throwing tantrums like a five year old. Coming up here and parading out all your pathetic insecurities for everyone to see. So you’re feeling a little guilty over offing daddy dearest? Guess what? _Nobody cares. Nobody cares about your feelings._ Maybe Hawkins isn’t the only one who needs to learn a lesson about the futility of sentiment.”

Hux smiled thinly. “Grow up, Ren. A piece of friendly advice? Caring… is not an advantage. Caring is a _liability_. You’re playing with the big boys now. So stop wearing your heart on your sleeve— or somebody’s going to rip it out for you.”

Kylo felt the words almost like a physical blow. Hux’s pitying smile was cutting into him like a knife. In that moment, the coldness of Kylo’s shame was so great that it even drowned out the red-hot rage that was coursing through him, screaming at him to tear Hux apart with his bare hands, make the pathetic, puffed up little man pay for what he had dared to say to Kylo.

Leaning in close to glare at Hux, Kylo snarled, “One of these days, you’re going to outlive your usefulness to the First Order and Snoke will finally let me kill you. When that day comes, I’m going to make you _scream,_ Hux. I’ll make you grovel on the floor, snivelling. You’ll be _begging_ me for mercy as you choke on your own blood.”

“I look forward to it.” Hux’s smile was all teeth, and he laughed merrily, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. His group of sycophants tittered along with him, like Hux had just made some greatly amusing joke.

Suddenly, Kylo couldn’t stand to be in the same room as Hux and his toadies and their infuriating, knowing smirks. They were a bunch of utterly vile, completely heartless monsters, and Kylo wished that they had all been vaporized by their stupid failure of a superweapon.

He swept out of the room, cloak billowing behind him, uncaring of his unfinished meal and the not so quiet whisper of, “Is he always like that?” followed by Hux’s casually mirthful reply of, “Yes, you’ll find that Ren’s a bit of a drama queen. You get used to it.”

Hux would pay. Kylo was going to make him _pay_ for this.


	2. Chapter 2

Kylo spent the next few days fuming silently, plotting out all the different ways he was going to kill Hux. Slowly. Gorily. With the maximum amount of pain.

He had thought he hated Hux previously, but it was nothing compared to how much he hated Hux now. He loathed everything about Hux—from the tips of his shiny black boots to every perfectly coiffed strand of his neatly gelled red hair.

Hux himself seemed eager to fan the flames of Kylo’s hatred—the bastard kept smirking at Kylo. Oh, he didn’t say anything… but he didn’t have to. That sly half-smirk half-sneer on his lips said everything. For once, Kylo actually gave into the temptation to leave his mask off during command meetings—just so that he could treat Hux to the full force of his displeasure. The beams of ultra-powered destructive energy from Hux’s stupid blown-up superweapon had nothing on the utter, unadulterated loathing Kylo was sending Hux’s way through his unrelenting glare. If hatred had physical force, Hux would be a smear on the polished black leather cover of his oh-so-special expensive custom-made high-backed swivel chair.

Yet even this did not quite take the edge off Kylo’s anger. He returned to his quarters after yet another infuriating meeting spent glaring silently at Hux, still feeling the urge to strangle Hux surging through him with the red-hot intensity of a thousand suns. It was when the doors to his room whooshed open that he saw it—

The cat. Hux’s cat. Hux’s goddamned ginger cat.

It was in his room again. The force only knew how it kept getting into Kylo’s extremely well-secured private quarters, but there it was. It was sitting on the ground next to the stand where Kylo had placed his spare helmet. It was calmly licking itself. There was a distinct scent of cat pee. From previous experience, this could only mean one thing.

Kylo’s spare helmet would need to be sent for cleaning again.

Kylo felt like he was about to burst from rage. He almost hurled his lightsaber straight at the animal, but he stopped himself in time. He didn’t want pieces of charred cat all over his room.

Sometimes it seemed like Hux and everything to do with him was put in this universe for the sole purpose of tormenting Kylo.

By the rules, keeping pets was forbidden upon the Finalizer. You couldn’t just let animals go running about a Star Destroyer. It was disruptive. (As was readily evident from the fact that Kylo’s helmet was currently drenched in cat pee.)

However, everyone knew about Hux’s cat. Millicent was something of an open secret. Hux certainly never took any pains to conceal his open flouting of the rules; he was senior enough that nobody dared to call him out on it. Kylo could grab Millicent, walk over to the nearby airlock and chuck the cat out of it and technically, he would be entirely justified in doing so.

But Kylo didn’t do it. Contrary to public opinion, he wasn’t actually a complete monster.

It really did figure that Hux’s damned cat would be just as much of a bane in Kylo’s life as its master. This wasn’t the first time the cat had somehow snuck its way into Kylo’s room and peed on his things. For some reason, the damned creature seemed to think of Kylo’s helmet stand as its personal litter box.

Kylo would even have suspected Hux of deliberately sending in his cat to pee on Kylo’s helmet, if it wasn’t immediately apparent to anyone with eyes just how much Hux adored the filthy thing.

He let the stupid animal get its orange fur all over his neatly ironed and perfectly starched black uniform. He showed pictures of it to his adoring little toadies for them to coo over. He had even brought the thing to a command meeting once because he was concerned that it was ‘sick’.

The man was a commander of _armies_. Not to mention, in charge of a galaxy-destroying superweapon that he used to destroy billions upon billions of lives (well, prior to said weapon getting blown up in the same explosion that nearly destroyed both Kylo and Hux’s military careers, of course). And this great general just let that stupid ginger furball walk all over him.

It was, frankly, kind of pathetic.

Now the animal was sitting in Kylo’s quarters, happily licking itself after having emptied its bladder all over Kylo’s helmet. Kylo glared at it, fuming. How could one tiny little animal get past all of Kylo’s security systems? It was almost as if it had help… but surely even a heartless monster like Hux wouldn’t want to risk Kylo putting a lightsaber through his beloved pet just for the sake of a petty prank, would he?

All of a sudden, a beautiful gem of an idea sprung into form in Kylo’s mind. It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Kylo wondered how he hadn’t thought of it before.

Usually Kylo would just grumble, shoo the cat out of his room, double-check his security systems and then put it out of his mind. But this time… this time, perhaps he could teach Hux a lesson. The bastard definitely deserved it.

So Hux was content to let his precious Millicent wander around the ship, going into other people’s quarters and peeing all over their personal artifacts? Well, if Hux couldn’t be bothered to keep a closer eye on his pet, surely he had no one but himself to blame if some… mishap… were to befall it. Or at least, if Hux _thought_ that some mishap had befallen it.

Hux said that love was for the weak—that sentiment was a failing? Well, let’s see how much he liked it when someone took his beloved Millicent away from him. Kylo couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when Hux realized his cat was gone.

And that was how Kylo ended up (kind of, sort of, maybe) stealing a cat.


	3. Chapter 3

It was about half an hour into Kylo’s plan to kidnap Hux’s cat that he realized he had no idea how to take care of a cat.

He was vaguely aware that cats liked to eat fish and drink milk and… well, that was about the extent of his knowledge. Kylo’s first order of business had been to keep all his helmets away from where the animal could urinate on them. He had given into the inevitability that his helmet stand would now serve as the cat’s new litter box. It was an acceptable sacrifice, rather than have the cat do its business on Kylo’s bed, or Force forbid, the plinth upon which Kylo had placed his grandfather’s mask.

Right now Kylo was sitting in his meditation chamber, trying his best to immerse himself in the dark side of the Force. However, this was proving to be a rather difficult task, given that Hux’s infuriating little ginger furball kept meowing insistently at him, rubbing itself against his side until Kylo finally sighed and opened his eyes.

What did the damned animal want? Did it want Kylo to pet it? That was something that cats liked, wasn’t it?

Kylo reached out and gave the cat three perfunctory little pets on its head before closing his eyes again and re-assuming his meditation pose. He reached out to the dark side, calling up that old familiar burn of anger inside of him to help ease the way—

The sound of meowing cut through the rage that was beginning to curl through Kylo, and the tentative connection he had established with the Force slipped through his fingers like sand. Kylo opened his eyes again, rage surging through him.

Millicent was staring at him, blue eyes wide, and the shout of anger that Kylo was about to let out died on his lips. The cat let out another sickeningly adorable meow, pawing at Kylo’s leg, and against his will, Kylo felt his fury melt away.

He sighed and picked the cat up, placing it on his lap. Its fur was surprisingly soft when Kylo ran his fingers through it.

“You are _incredibly_ annoying,” Kylo informed the cat. “Just like your owner. Two peas in a pod. Like master, like pet. I really should just flush you out of an airlock. I hate cats, you know. And I utterly despise your master. There’s no reason why I should keep you alive.”

The cat just purred softly, butting its head against Kylo’s hand until Kylo started petting it again. Kylo couldn’t help but smile a little as he said, “Needy little thing, aren’t you? Not content unless you’re the centre of attention. You must have picked that up from your master. He’s always making all those stupid grand speeches of his. And he dares to call _me_ the drama queen?” Kylo scoffed. “What do you think, cat? Do you think your master is a drama queen?”

The cat didn’t answer, obviously. It just continued purring, like a tiny furry engine vibrating against Kylo’s lap. “Stupid animal,” Kylo muttered. “You should be trying to claw my eyes out for stealing you away from your true owner. But look at you. You’re just trying to kiss ass so that I’ll feed you. Furry little traitor.”

Kylo ended up stealing some milk from the kitchens for the cat. Sure, he could have just ordered it over the intercom and some droid or luckless stormtrooper would have delivered it straight to Kylo’s quarters. But Kylo’s plan hinged on him keeping Hux’s animal secreted away in his room, nobody any the wiser to its continued existence. And so Kylo found himself sneaking into the kitchens, dodging the kitchen droids and the stormtroopers on kitchen duty, furtively pulling a carton of milk and a saucer towards himself with the Force before hiding them in his robes and hurrying back to his chambers.

“You had better appreciate this,” Kylo told the cat as it lapped at the milk that Kylo had stolen for it. “I had to sneak through my own flagship like a criminal just to bring you that milk.”

The cat just continued drinking, tiny pink tongue darting out again and again as the level of milk in the saucer rapidly lowered. It looked ridiculously dainty, and Kylo couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped him.

Eventually all the milk was gone. Millicent let out a little yawn, curled up next to the saucer, and promptly fell asleep. That was gratitude for you.

Kylo shook his head, smiling ruefully. “I don’t know what Hux sees in you,” he informed the sleeping cat. “All you do is eat, sleep, and pee. And ignore me until there's something you want. There’s no practical benefit to keeping you around. Insufficient return for all the effort invested. And Hux... well, Hux is usually all about maximizing ‘ _efficiency_ ’… Did you know he once lectured me for a full five minutes on ‘efficiency’ after I destroyed one control panel? He must have used that word at least a hundred times.”

Kylo let out an exasperated huff, chuckling, before it dawned on him that he was talking to a cat. Kylo knew that he didn’t have the most scintillating social life, but still, it was kind of sad that the most friendly conversation he’d had in weeks was a one-sided chat with his worst enemy’s cat.

“Now I know why Hux keeps you around,” Kylo said dryly, “He doesn’t have any friends either.”

Kylo got up and fetched a few of his rattiest old cloaks from the wardrobe. He arranged them around the animal like a nest. He knew that the thermostat in his quarters usually ran a little on the cold side. And he was just— well, he was just keeping his stolen cat in good condition. After all, it wouldn’t really be a good prank if he didn’t also get to see the tears of relief and angry gratitude that Hux would struggle to keep in when Kylo finally returned his beloved animal to him, would it?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who has been reading and leaving me little hearts and commenting etc. <3 It makes me so glad to know that people are enjoying my story about Kylo Ren's adventures in stealing a cat. Know that I appreciate each and every comment you guys leave. I may not reply because I'm a lazy asshole like that, but do not doubt for a single second that I don't treasure every single one like Hux treasures Millicent.

 

It took a surprisingly long time for Hux to finally confront him. Kylo had expected the man to show up the moment he realized his cat was gone. He knew Hux’s schedule— the general was obsessed about order, punctilious to the very second. It made predicting his whereabouts laughably easy.

_Command meeting at 16:00. Dinner at 18:00. Quick visit to the bridge at 18:45. Strategy meeting with senior captains at 19:00. Meeting with Phasma at 21:00 to discuss the stormtrooper program. Off duty at 22:00_ — upon which Hux was free to return to his quarters to sleep and dream happy dreams about all the planetary systems he’d blow up and the various other awful things he would do to people who were not himself.

Kylo also knew that Hux had placed a tracker on Millicent’s collar— a ridiculously elaborate-looking affair of shiny black leather and chrome, complete with a tiny silver name tag engraved with ‘Millicent’ in fancy copperplate on the front and Hux’s commlink number in neat, no-nonsense font on the back.

That Hux had planted a tracker on his animal was hardly surprising given his general obsession with controlling everything. It did explain why Hux had been so unconcerned about letting his animal wander the ship. The moment Kylo had discovered the tracker, he had taken the collar off the snoozing cat, walked over to the nearest airlock and chucked it out, watching the expensive leather strap float off into the black emptiness of space with great satisfaction, smirking at the thought of the look on Hux’s face when Kylo told him he’d flushed his cat out into space like so much garbage.

All in all, Kylo had given Hux about fifteen minutes after returning to his quarters and realizing his cat was gone to come running to Kylo, wailing about the disappearance of his precious Millicent.

He had even gone out of his way to pay a special visit to the bridge, strategically situating himself smack dab in the middle of it, where there was the maximum concentration of officers and stormtroopers— thus also guaranteeing the maximum amount of embarrassment for Hux when he came to look for Kylo and then broke down crying after Kylo told him about the oh-so-unfortunate 'demise' of his precious cat.

Yet there had no sign of Hux until a little past midnight.

Kylo was on his way back to his quarters from the kitchens, a piece of salmon secreted away in the folds of his robes. Yes, he had already stolen milk for the cat earlier, but Kylo reasoned that an all-liquid diet was probably insufficient to sustain a whole animal. He didn’t want Hux to accuse him of starving his cat. Kylo might be a cold-blooded killer and a torturer and an accessory to mass murder and genocide… and also now (kind of, sort of, maybe) a thief… but he wasn’t about to add animal cruelty to his list of crimes.

When Kylo reached his rooms, it was to the sight of Hux standing outside the doors to his quarters, shoulders rigid and tense. His uniform and hair were as neat and perfectly put together as ever, but there was still something of an aura of disarray about him. His hands were clenched into fists and there was a wild, manic look to his eyes. As Kylo neared him, Hux looked up from where he had been staring intently at his clenched fists.

His face was shockingly pale, almost sickly-looking; the cold white lighting of the star destroyer’s corridors was doing his already pallid complexion no favours. A small jolt of vindictive pleasure surged through Kylo when he noticed the minute, almost unnoticeable trembling of Hux’s clenched fists.

_Bingo_.

“General Hux,” Kylo greeted, face straight, careful to keep any traces of glee out of his voice. “What brings you to my rooms at such a late hour?”

“Don’t play coy with me,” Hux said- or more like, spat. His voice was trembling with emotion— anger, Kylo realized, mixed with a manic edge of panic. “You know exactly why I’m here.”

_Perfect_. Kylo smiled. _Play it cool. Play it casual_.

“Whatever do you mean, General? Is this important? It’s late and I have better things to do than entertain you. Like sleep. So why don’t you come back tomorrow?”

Hux looked as though he was about to explode from anger. “You know what you did,” he hissed, “Millicent was last seen in your chambers. I _know_ , Ren. I put a tracker on her.”

Kylo made a show of arching one eyebrow. “Millicent? I’m afraid I don’t know of anyone with that name. Do you always put trackers on others, Hux? That’s a gross breach of privacy.”

“Millicent is my cat, you idiot!”

“Your cat? Oh. And here I thought you were harassing me in the middle of the night because of something _important_.”

“What have you done to my cat, Ren?” Hux said, a dangerous edge to his voice.

Kylo flashed Hux a smile, all sunny sweetness. Casually, he said, “That filthy animal? I found it in my room again, peeing on my helmet. So I flushed it out of the airlock.”

Said filthy animal was currently curled up in a corner of Kylo’s room, snoozing in a pile of Kylo’s ratty old cloaks, furry little tummy fat from the milk Kylo had stolen for it, but there was really no need for Hux to know any of that.

Kylo had thought that Hux’s face was pale before, but it was nothing compared to the deathly pallor of his face now as all the colour was bleached from it. For a long moment, Hux just stared at Kylo, eyes wide and disbelieving. Kylo savoured it. Revenge was best served cold, indeed.

Then Hux’s face twisted in grief-stricken anger. “You’re lying. You wouldn’t. You’ve never harmed her before. I know you—you wouldn’t kill a defenceless animal like that. You’re too—you’re too soft—”

The old familiar anger rose in Kylo. _‘Soft’_? How dare Hux call him ‘ _soft’_? And that made his next words come out all the more easily. He felt absolutely no remorse about what he did next.

“I’m not lying,” Kylo lied smoothly. “I’ve already given that filthy thing far more chances than it deserved. If you can’t keep your pet from being a nuisance, you shouldn’t be surprised when someone takes care of the problem for you.”

“This isn’t funny, Ren,” Hux said, voice tight with anger, “Stop lying to me. Give Millicent back now.”

Kylo smiled at Hux with faux-sweetness. “In case it wasn’t already abundantly clear— _I hate you, Hux_ ,” Kylo enunciated every word clearly, “I hate _everything_ about you. So tell me. What reason do I have not to kill your beloved pet? Why wouldn’t I gladly toss your cat out of an airlock like so much trash?" He smiled, savouring Hux's impotent rage as he said slowly, "Just. Because. I. Can.”

Hux glared at him in silence, anger and grief twisting his features into a nearly unrecognizable mask, and Kylo took the chance to twist the knife in further. “You know, if you really want proof, the frozen corpse might still be floating around somewhere in the Bith system. But we’ve made a hyperspace jump since then. Would be a little _inefficient_ to backtrack now, wouldn’t it, General?” Smiling, Kylo said, with deliberate casualness, “I don’t see why you’re so concerned, anyway. It was just a cat.”

“You’re a _monster_.” Hux’s face was blotchy, nose turning red, and it stood out even further because of his pale skin. Kylo noted with delight that he kept blinking and his eyes were suspiciously glassy.

“Millicent was innocent—She didn’t deserve— she—” Hux’s voice got more and more choked up and he stopped, clearly unable to continue.

“Innocent?” Kylo said silkily, “Just as innocent as all the people in the Hosnian System? You know, I suspect that more than a few cats might have been vaporized when you gave the order for Starkiller to fire. I don’t remember you being terribly broken up about that.”

Hux just glared at him mutely, eyes red.

Smirking, Kylo said, “You know, someone told me something once. I think it was something about… what? ‘Caring isn’t an advantage’?” Kylo paused for a beat before saying, voice deliberately light, “A piece of friendly advice, Hux? Stop wearing your heart on your sleeve… or somebody’s going to rip it out for you.”

Hux’s face twisted in rage. In a voice that was dangerously quiet, he hissed, “I’ll never forgive you for this.”

Kylo just laughed in his face before turning away with a sharp spin of his heel. With a wave of his hand, his room doors whooshed open. Kylo was still laughing when he strode into his room, raising a hand to casually wave the doors closed behind him. Hux’s angry shouts followed him in, “Did you hear me, Ren? I’ll never forgive you for this! _NEVER!_ ”

Over at Millicent’s makeshift bed of ratty cloaks, a tiny furry head was just beginning to peek out from behind the piles of cloth. A pair of blue eyes stared at Kylo, bright and inquisitive. The cat had been roused from its nap, undoubtedly alerted by its master’s loud shouting.

“What did I tell you, cat?” Kylo said. “Total drama queen.”


	5. Chapter 5

Kylo spent most of the next morning and afternoon basking in the glorious knowledge that he had officially Gotten One Over Hux.

Kylo was Making Hux Pay, and he was doing so in the most beautifully karmic of ways. It was only fitting that a man who had so little care for the lives and feelings of others should experience the loss of the one living creature he had allowed into the cold, dead thing that could only be anatomically described as his heart. Kylo was practically doing the universe a solid by giving Hux a taste of his own medicine.

And what a taste it must have been— because for what was possibly the first time in his meticulously ordered life, Hux was actually _late_ for a command meeting. For a full _five minutes._ Kylo was sure that Hux’s junior officers must have been pissing themselves in shock.

This command meeting was the first time Kylo and Hux were meeting in earnest since Kylo had informed Hux of the untimely ‘demise’ of his animal (besides short glimpses in the hallways when Hux shot death glares at Kylo while Kylo smirked back at him tauntingly). Kylo was looking forward to seeing the fruits of his labour up close and personal, and he was definitely not disappointed.

Hux’s hair, normally so immaculately gelled, was in a state of disarray, strands of it falling limply across his face. His uniform was noticeably rumpled. It looked almost as though he had slept in it—or perhaps he had not actually slept at all. The size of Hux’s eye-bags certainly was lending credence to that theory. Perhaps Hux had stayed up all night crying over the death of his beloved animal; his eyes were bloodshot enough to suggest it.

A petty sort of satisfaction filled Kylo. It sure was nice to see the once high-and-mighty Hux looking so unlike his usual self. Wasn’t it just amazing, what a simple lie could do? That would teach Hux— _caring is not an advantage, indeed!_

The general was also noticeably distracted during the meeting. He seemed to have lost his usual fondness for the sound of his own voice. There were no pontifications about ‘efficiency’ and ‘order’, or even Hux’s great favourite, the classic, “Perhaps it would behoove you to pay a little more attention, Ren. This is important.”

Instead, Hux spent the meeting alternating between staring listlessly at the summary reports of troop movements and trying to murder Kylo with the power of his glare. It was probably fortunate that Hux had all the Force sensitivity of a rock, or Kylo would undoubtedly have been Force-choked to death the moment the general clapped eyes on him.

After the meeting ended, Hux got up nearly immediately, striding towards the door with an expression of stormy, barely repressed anger on his face. Kylo intercepted him before he could leave the room, standing in front of the doorway and forcing Hux to come to a halt lest he run smack into Kylo’s chest.

When Hux looked up, his face was a mask of pure hatred. “Move aside, Ren,” he said, vitriol dripping from each harshly spat word.

“Did you sleep well last night, General?” Kylo said, “I couldn’t help but notice that you’re looking a little… under the weather, today.”

“My sleep, or lack thereof, is none of your business.” Hux’s glare could have cut through durasteel. “I have neither the time nor the mood to play these _games_ with you, Ren. _Move._ ”

“You didn’t spend the whole night weeping over the death of your filthy animal, did you?” Kylo said, allowing a snide sneer to slip onto his lips.

Hux gritted his teeth, visibly trying to control his anger as he hissed, “As I said, Ren. None. Of. Your. Business.”

He shouldered his way past Kylo, a task that was surely none too easy considering Kylo’s relatively larger frame. As Hux brushed past him, Kylo felt it through the Force—Hux’s surface emotions, strong enough that Kylo could feel them without even consciously reaching out to Hux’s mind. There was a cold, burning anger, the steely conviction that _Ren would pay,_ and above it all, like a dark undercurrent that threatened to drag the unwary down into the deep, was a raw, heartfelt grief that was almost overwhelming in its intensity—

—Then Hux moved past, and the connection broke.

Kylo was left staring at Hux’s retreating back, a strange nagging ache rising up in his chest. Abruptly, a memory surfaced.

 _Hux, face deathly pale beneath the cold interior lighting of the Finalizer's corridors, his voice choking up in obvious grief_. _His eyes were red and gleaming with a tellingly wet sheen. Tears. There were **tears** in Hux’s eyes—_

Kylo gave himself a mental shake, wrenching his thoughts away from the memory. In order to get his mind off that strange, nagging feeling in his chest, he went to the kitchens and stole a plate of salmon and some milk for the cat.

He returned to his room to discover that sometime during his absence, the cat had managed to shred one of Kylo’s ratty old cloaks into pieces. Normally this would have angered Kylo. However, Kylo wasn’t particularly attached to those old cloaks, and besides, he had already made the decision to sacrifice them for the sake of the animal anyway. (Also, Millicent had looked at him with those large blue eyes, and under the force of that sickeningly adorable gaze, Kylo felt whatever scant traces of anger that were building in him melt away.)

Upon discovering the mess that Hux’s animal had made of Kylo’s old cloak, Kylo merely sighed and used the Force to clean up the pieces of cloth. It was then that he made an amusing discovery—the cat was intensely interested in the scraps of cloth when Kylo moved them around with the Force.

It started batting at the pieces of floating cloth. Kylo discovered that he could make the animal jump about excitedly by making a scrap of cloth dance around in the air. He would move the cloth in near the cat, wave it about invitingly, and the animal would tense to pounce, but then Kylo would smirk and lift the cloth out of the cat’s reach as it leapt, cheating the animal.

Kylo did this once. Then twice. Then thrice… and then quite a few more times. The animal fell for it every time.

Kylo was surprised to discover that he found the animal’s stupidity strangely charming. And the cat didn’t even seem displeased or resentful that Kylo was taunting it like this. In fact, it seemed to actually enjoy the activity. Against his will, Kylo found himself enjoying it too.

“This is an incredibly wasteful use of my Force powers,” he told Millicent as he made a scrap of cloth dance around the room and the animal happily chased after it like the dumb beast that it was, “But I suppose it’s worth it to see just how stupid cats can be.”

After the cat had exhausted itself chasing the piece of cloth, it climbed up onto Kylo’s lap. Kylo let it. He was about to embark upon the incredibly tiresome task of sorting through the useless mail that people insisted on sending to him, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a little company. The cat was a warm, furry little presence on his lap, and Kylo found himself absently stroking his fingers through the sleeping cat’s fur as he worked on deleting messages off his datapad.

If his lips perhaps… twitched a little upwards, who was to know this little secret except Kylo himself and Millicent? Kylo wasn’t about to go around broadcasting it for all and sundry to hear, and Millicent… well, it was definitely safe to say that Millicent wouldn’t be telling anybody.


	6. Chapter 6

 

Kylo had known that Hux was exceedingly fond of his cat. Yet it seemed that even he had not quite anticipated the true extent of Hux’s attachment to the animal. Over the next few days, Kylo watched the results of his handiwork unfold like a slow motion train wreck.

Kylo had elected to take his meals in his private chambers ever since the disastrous incident with Hux in the Officers’ Mess. However, now he decided to return to his usual routine, all the better to observe Hux. For the first few days, Hux continued to eat together with his usual bunch of little toadies. However, he picked at his food, and when he did eat something, it was with an almost mechanical forcedness.

His lackeys, perhaps sensing their leader’s mood, were deliberately trying to make more conversation— flailing, pathetic attempts at trying to inject cheer into an atmosphere that was deader than a week-old corpse. Despite their best efforts, Hux remained sullenly silent, managing only perfunctory responses that rarely made it past monosyllables.

One day, Hux finally gave up all pretence at adhering to his normal social routine, telling his toadies that he was tired and would be taking his meal in his private quarters before sweeping off, greatcoat flaring behind him.

Kylo saw the way Hux’s underlings looked at each other, sly and knowing, and knew what the lot of them were thinking. Like sharks scenting blood in the water, Hux’s little minions were already starting to hatch plots to make a power-grab. Vultures, the lot of them. This was why Kylo despised politics, despite the best efforts of his mother—

Kylo hurriedly halted that train of thought right in its tracks. That past was dead to him now.

Kylo took out his datapad so that he could browse the Holonet while having his meal. He had read an article on cats last night that claimed it was a myth that all cats liked milk. Apparently it could sometimes be harmful to the cat if the specific animal was lactose intolerant. Kylo was trying to read up more about it so that he could decide whether to keep giving Millicent milk. The cat did seem to enjoy drinking it, but Kylo reasoned that it was better to err on the side of caution. After all, he did not want to accidentally poison Hux’s animal after investing so much effort into keeping it alive.

Kylo was startled from his reading of ‘Feline Nutrition 101: A Basic Guide to Keeping Your Kitty Happy and Healthy’ by a clank of metal. He looked past his datapad to see a silver stormtrooper helmet, polished to a sheen, sitting on the table—evidently, this was the source of the earlier clank. The helmet's owner was currently seating herself down on the chair opposite Kylo.

“Nicely done,” Phasma said.

Kylo was puzzled by this seeming non-sequitur. He also found it rather strange that Phasma had decided to join him at his table. It was true that Kylo did enjoy a fairly amicable working relationship with the stormtrooper captain, and she was one of the few people on this ship whose company Kylo would willingly tolerate, but he wouldn’t go so far as to call her a _friend_.

Kylo waited for her to elaborate, which Phasma eventually did.

“What you did with Hux,” she said, “It was a pretty daring move, I must say. But it looks like it worked. You’ve crushed his spirit. I’ve done that more than a couple of times myself. In my line of work, training the new recruits, I find that it’s essential. And well, I know how it looks when you break someone. The dead look in their eyes.” Phasma smiled sharply, and there was some undecipherable emotion behind it.

She didn’t wait for Kylo to add anything to the conversation, instead continuing on blithely, “You know, I always thought you were a little too… honourable to truly fit in around here, but I guess I was mistaken.” As she spoke, that strange, unsettlingly enigmatic smile once again ghosted across her lips, “Remind me never to get on your bad side, Ren.”

For all that her words were congratulatory, it felt far more like a condemnation to Kylo. Kylo just sat there, stunned, unsure how to respond.

Phasma flashed Kylo another one of her undecipherable smiles before getting up and putting her helmet back on. In a whirl of her cape, she was striding out of the mess hall, leaving Kylo feeling thrown and with a niggling feeling in his chest that felt a little too much like shame for his comfort.

 

\---

 

“Your master is an incredibly bad man, and I did the right thing when I lied to him about you,” Kylo told Millicent as he watched the cat scarf down the latest piece of salmon Kylo had stolen for it. “After all the things he’s done, he deserves to be taught a lesson. Wouldn’t you agree, cat?”

Millicent ignored him, instead determinedly polishing off the fish like an extra furry little vacuum cleaner. After the cat was done eating, it padded over to where Kylo was sitting on the edge of the bed and started twining around his legs, meowing. Lips twitching, Kylo picked the cat up to place it on his lap.

“You’re such a little kiss-ass,” he told the cat as he stroked it. “Do you miss Hux at all? Do you ever wish you could go back?”

Millicent just purred and kneaded his thighs.

Kylo shook his head, letting out a rueful snort. “What am I thinking? Talking to a cat.”

 

\---

 

Hux continued to be distracted during command meetings. He was off his game, and it showed.

During this particular meeting, Hux was up for a presentation about recent troop deployments. He got through the actual presentation alright, and if his speech lacked something of its usual flair- unsurprising given that he was reading straight off his datapad- nobody seemed to care. It was when he got to the Q&A that things started going sideways. Spectacularly.

It was strange to see the normally so efficient general struggling to come up with answers to questions about the reports that he had written _himself_.

"That's a good question, Michaels," Hux said, before trailing off. "And the answer to your question is... Sorry, let me just check this-"

An embarrassed, awkward silence filled the whole room as Hux stood there, scanning his notes furiously, until one of Hux’s junior officers stood up to answer on his behalf.

Hux, cheeks flaming red and lips thin, sat back down. It was obvious from the pinched look on his face that he had heard the none-too-quiet chuckles of his subordinates as they not so subtly laughed at their leader’s failure.

A few days ago, Kylo would have been absolutely delighted by this public humiliation. However, he had found that any joy he had derived from Hux’s disgrace was quickly fading.

Kylo never thought he’d say this but he was actually beginning to _miss_ the old Hux—the one who’d argue back when Kylo tried to snipe at him, the one who would give as good as he got. Not this new Hux, who glared at Kylo as always, but refused to respond to Kylo’s baiting with anything more than a few curt words and then the retreating view of his back. It was as though some essential spark had gone out of Hux, and when Kylo looked into the general's grey-green eyes, narrowed in anger at Kylo, he was suddenly reminded of what Phasma had said.

_Dead eyes._ Those were dead eyes.

Kylo should be happy that he had broken his most hated enemy. Hux was a mass-murderer. He had the blood of billions of innocents on his hands. He had mercilessly mocked Kylo simply for having _feelings_. He was a cruel, heartless monster who deserved every single bit of suffering that Kylo could dish out to him.

Why then did Kylo feel so conflicted about this?

 

\---

 

Things came to a head when Kylo and Hux were summoned to the holoprojection chamber for their weekly meeting with Snoke.

Snoke’s holographic form towered over them, face stern.

“General Hux,” he said, “It has come to my attention that you have been rather… distracted lately. The progress on our new project has been less than satisfactory.”

Hux’s face paled. He looked terribly small under the harsh lighting of the holoprojection chamber, shrunken somehow. Even the grand military greatcoat he wore did nothing to lessen the effect.

“Supreme Leader, I—”

Snoke cut him off. “I don’t want excuses, General. I want results. Need I remind you of the consequences of failure? I have already been more than lenient with you. Has it escaped your memory that the destruction of Starkiller is on _your_ head? Any other man would have been summarily executed for this failure, and yet… I decided to spare you. Because you were _still of use_ to this organization. Now, if you were to be no longer of use to us…” Snoke steepled his fingers, smiling thinly. “Well. Let’s just say that you would not enjoy that outcome. Have I made myself clear, General?”

Kylo caught a brief glimpse of the bob of Hux's Adam's apple down the long pale line of his throat as the general swallowed nervously.

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke flicked his fingers at Hux carelessly, his expression almost bored now that the threat had melted away from it. “Good. Dismissed.”

Shoulders stiff, Hux spun on his heel and walked away, taking each step with sharp, military precision. Kylo could feel the fear and tension rolling off him in waves. Kylo turned to leave as well, but Snoke stopped him with a softly spoken, “Stay, Lord Ren.”

Kylo paused and turned back, coming to attention in front of Snoke’s larger than life hologram. With some trepidation, he lifted his face to meet his master’s gaze. To say that Snoke had been less than pleased with Kylo’s performance when Starkiller Base was destroyed would be putting it lightly. Kylo was keenly aware of the fact that he was not currently in his master’s favour.

However, instead of the verbal flaying Kylo was expecting, especially given what Snoke had just done to Hux, Snoke just looked at him, a smile slowly forming on his lips.

“Well, well, well… I hear that we have you to thank for the general’s recent distraction, my apprentice. I must say that I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you…” Snoke trailed off, still smiling as he looked at Kylo. Kylo fought not to fidget under that intent, almost predatory gaze.

There was a slight hint of rebuke in Snoke’s tone as he continued, “As you are probably well aware, I’ve been rather disappointed in you lately. I had almost begun to question my wisdom in taking you on as my apprentice. I had begun to wonder if you truly had the mettle to become a Sith Lord, much less one as great as your grandfather,” Snoke’s voice turned snide, lips curling in scorn, “After all, Darth Vader would hardly have allowed himself to be bested by a mere scavenger, still new to the Force, and a Force-blind _stormtrooper_ , would he? I had thought you too soft, too conflicted, too ensnared by the Light. Too _weak_ —”

This was nothing that Kylo hadn’t heard before. Snoke had been made his disdain for Kylo’s weakness quite clear during the weeks following Kylo’s ignominious defeat at the hands of the scavenger girl and her traitorous companion. Kylo kept a tight rein on his anger; he’d learned from previous experience that any sign of protest from him would only provoke Snoke further.

“I had worried that you lacked the cunning, the mercilessness needed to be a true Sith… but now I see my fears were unfounded. I know you’ve always hated the general. What you did—killing his beloved pet, making him _suffer_ by taking away everything he had ever loved—that was a stroke of genius. An action worthy of a Dark Lord of the Sith. It’s easy enough to break a man physically—but crushing his will… now, that’s a true achievement.” The way Snoke looked at Kylo, smiling and proud, was almost fond. “I had my doubts about you, but now I am confident that I chose well. We’ll make a Sith out of you yet, Lord Ren.”

Those words were everything that Kylo had ever dreamed of hearing. Snoke was actually _praising_ him—telling Kylo that he was impressed, that Kylo would make a good Sith Lord. He should be overjoyed. Yet all Kylo felt was an aching, hollow emptiness.

“Thank you, Master,” he said. He couldn't quite hide the flatness of his tone, but it seemed that Snoke had not noticed anything wrong with Kylo's less than enthusiastic response.

Tone musing, Snoke said, “If the general doesn’t get his act together soon, perhaps I’ll let you execute him yourself. I know you’ve always wanted him gone. And if the man can’t even function because of the death of a _cat_ , he obviously isn’t fit to lead the First Order, is he?”

Snoke smiled at Kylo with an air of indulgent generosity, as though he was bestowing upon Kylo some great reward. Kylo knew Snoke was waiting for him to answer, to agree with him, but the words didn’t seem to want to come out.

“Yes, Master,” Kylo finally forced himself to say.

Kylo had wanted to teach Hux a lesson. He had wanted to see Hux suffer. In his mind, he had fantasized about killing Hux in a thousand different gory ways. But now that he was faced with the prospect of those fantasies actually becoming reality, now that he was confronted with a very real possibility of Hux’s _death_ … there was nothing but a cold feeling settling deep in the pits of Kylo’s stomach.

Oblivious to Kylo’s internal conflict, Snoke nodded, smiling at Kylo with almost avuncular affability. “That will be all. Continue to do me proud, Lord Ren.”

The hologram winked out, leaving Kylo standing in the darkness of the empty holoprojection chamber.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh gosh that was pretty heavy, wasn't it? We're starting to venture into the angsty part of this fic now so gird your loins, dear readers. But don't worry, things always get worse before they get better :)


	7. Chapter 7

When Kylo returned to his quarters, he was still disquieted, his thoughts mired in a turbulent, troubled mess. The cold feeling in his stomach refused to go away, and so Kylo decided to meditate in order to immerse himself in the dark side of the Force.

Kylo had to confess that he had not done very much meditation as of late. Hux’s animal was entirely to blame.

The cat was a terrible distraction. Kylo had to steal food for it, change its litter (i.e. the dust upon his old helmet stand), and indulge it whenever it wanted his attention- which was, as Kylo found, pretty damn often. The cat would meow and paw at him, looking at him with those large, entreating blue eyes, and that would be the end of Kylo’s productivity for the rest of the evening.

Once, Kylo had been playing a game of ‘tease the dumb animal with a flying scrap of cloth’ (exercise was essential for a cat’s physical and mental wellbeing, as Kylo had been informed by the Holonet article he read), only to look up at the chronometer and find that more than an hour had flown past without him even noticing.

It was kind of embarrassing just how much of his life now revolved around the care of the cat Kylo had (kind of, sort of, maybe) stolen from Hux, but Kylo tried his best not to think too much about it.

Millicent had already been fed and the animal was currently asleep in its pile of cloaks, so Kylo was free to meditate without fear of interruption. However, even without the cat to distract him, Kylo found himself struggling to reach out to the dark side. His thoughts were constantly shifting. Even as he tried to clear his mind, focusing on calling up feelings of anger and hatred, Kylo kept catching snatches of memories—

_Hux, face pale, looking startlingly small as he gazed at Snoke with fear in his eyes._

_Snoke smiling, darkly amused. “What you did—killing his beloved pet, making him **suffer** by taking away everything he had ever loved—”_

_“I always thought you were a little too… honourable to truly fit in around here—”_

_The clear heartbreak and accusation in Hux’s voice as he said, “You’re a **monster**.” There was a glassy sheen of tears in Hux’s eyes—_

Try as he might, Kylo could not stop himself from going back, again and again, to that moment. Hux’s words echoed in his mind.

_You’re a **monster**._

Kylo stood up abruptly. It was obvious that his attempts at meditation were going nowhere.

Without even bothering to change out of his robes, Kylo toppled onto his bed. A flick of his hand and the lights in his room were switched off. Kylo lay in the darkness, trying not to think of Hux and his pale, tear-streaked face but never quite succeeding, until at last exhaustion overhwlemed him and he drifted off into a fitful, troubled sleep.

 

\---

 

Kylo was dreaming.

In his dream, he was a full-fledged Sith Lord. In honour of this momentous occasion, Snoke had allowed him to take on an apprentice of his own… so Kylo chose Millicent.

Millicent was wearing a little black cloak and a tiny, cat-sized version of Kylo’s helmet. “Now you can pee on your own helmet,” Kylo told the cat. Millicent meowed back in happy agreement.

Millicent was trying to use the Force to juggle three saucers of milk. Kylo tried to tell her to stop, she might spill the milk, and Force knew how hard it was to get milk stains off black—

He heard laughter. Kylo turned around to see that it was Hux. Hux was laughing at him.

“You’re so weak, Ren,” Hux said, “Look! My cat is stronger with the Force than you!”

Kylo looked over to see that Millicent was effortlessly juggling ten saucers of milk. Kylo was incredibly jealous. He couldn’t even manage two.

Hux continued laughing. “You’ll never be your grandfather, Ren. How can you, when you’re nothing but a _whiny, overly-emotional crybaby_?”

Rage filled Kylo. “How dare you? I’ll kill you for this, Hux! I swear I will—”

Suddenly, Kylo was standing on a narrow walkway that led out above a wide, gaping chasm. Hux was standing in front of him. The general was staring at him, mouth open in shock. Kylo’s lightsaber was buried in his chest.

“Is this what you truly want?” Hux said. A trickle of blood ran down his lower lip and then down his chin. “My death?”

Kylo stared at him mutely. Hux’s gaze bore into his, and it felt like Kylo was being flayed alive, cut to the bone.

“Tell me, Ren. Do you really want me _dead_?”

Then it was Han Solo looking at Kylo from where he was impaled on Kylo’s lightsaber.

His eyes were tired, filled with incredible sorrow. His fingers gently caressed Kylo’s cheek, the calloused, rough feel of them so horribly, painfully familiar.

“Never thought I’d raise a monster,” Han Solo said quietly, “You were such a good kid. But I guess life’s full of surprises like that."

Kylo’s lightsaber switched off, and Han Solo toppled off the walkway, almost gracefully, and his form was rapidly swallowed by the darkness of the chasm beneath.

The surroundings changed again.

Kylo was lying in the snow, surrounded by a dark forest of trees. He was bleeding, wounded, too weak to move. The planet was breaking up around him, and Kylo was so very, very cold.

_Hux_. Where was Hux? Hux was supposed to come. Hux was supposed to save him…

“Hux!” he screamed, “Where are you?”

There was nothing but the distant boom of explosions and the bone-numbing chill of the snow. Kylo was cold and alone and he just wanted someone to come save him.

“Hux, please…” Tears were trickling down Kylo’s face, intermingling with the blood from the wound on his face. “Help me…”

“Nobody’s coming to help you, Ben.”

Squinting through the blood and tears, Kylo made out the form of his mother.

General Leia Organa-Solo was standing over him; her face was hard as stone. There was no trace of the gentleness that had softened her features so often when Kylo was still a child.

“Do you know why? You’ve killed or turned away everyone who might once have cared enough to do so.”

Kylo reached out towards her with one trembling hand. “Mom… please…” he begged, but Leia’s expression remained cold, implacable.

“The scavenger girl was right. And the general too. You _are_ a monster. A cruel, spiteful monster who doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he gets what he wants. You destroy everything you touch, Ben— and that’s why you’re going to die alone and unloved. It’s no more than you deserve.”

Kylo watched his mother walk away, tears blurring his vision until he could barely see. He was sobbing, great, heaving sobs that left him shaking. Kylo curled into a foetal position, still shaking violently, and closed his eyes. He was so very cold.

There was a soft meow.

Kylo opened his eyes.

Millicent was looking at him, blue eyes large and curious. Her helmet and cape were gone; she was just a cat now.

“Millicent,” Kylo breathed.

Millicent started to pad towards him, meowing softly, and Kylo felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude. At least there was still one living creature in this universe that cared whether Kylo lived or died. The tears started to well up again in Kylo’s eyes, but this time they were tears of relief.

“Thank you, thank you, _thank you_ -”

Millicent stopped.

“Wait! Where are you going? … Millicent?”

Millicent ignored him. With a dull sense of dread, Kylo watched her walk away through the snow, her ginger fur a bright flash of colour against the blanket of white. He watched until he couldn’t see her tiny form anymore through the flurry of falling ashes and snow.

It was then that Kylo allowed his head to fall back on the snow, all the fight going out of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears seeped out from behind his eyelids anyway. Everyone had abandoned him, even Millicent… Kylo was so hateful that even a dumb animal, with no concept of good or evil, right or wrong, had rejected him.

His mother was right. Kylo was nothing but a monster, and he was going to die _alone and unloved_ —

Kylo woke up with a gasp.

When he touched his fingers to his cheek, they came away wet. Suddenly, he was shaking with sobs, and he just couldn’t stop no matter how much he tried to.

_It’s just a dream_ , Kylo told himself. _Just a bad dream._

He felt the mattress move. Something warm and soft settled itself against his side. It was making a soft meowing noise.

Millicent.

The cat kept meowing, butting its head against Kylo until Kylo started stroking it. Finally Kylo just gave in to impulse and hugged Millicent to his chest. He bowed his head, burying his face in her soft fur. Millicent didn’t squirm or try to jump out of Kylo’s arms, even though Kylo was grabbing her quite tightly and his tears were soaking into her fur. She just purred softly. Kylo could feel the vibration of it against his cheek. It was surprisingly soothing.

How pitiful and ridiculous he must look now. Hugging a cat to him and sobbing into its fur. But Kylo found that he didn’t really care. Millicent had sensed his distress and come to comfort him, and Kylo was stupidly, pathetically grateful for that.

Eventually Kylo raised his face from Millicent’s fur. His voice came out hoarse as he spoke, voice barely above a whisper, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I killed Han Solo. I know I shouldn’t be—Sith Lords aren’t supposed to feel guilty—but I…” Kylo trailed off into silence, gaze fixed on his hand as he stroked Millicent’s back. The repetitive action was strangely soothing.

Kylo let out a soft sigh, a quiet exhale of breath. “I’ve done so many bad things, Millicent. I know I’m not a good person. I tell myself that—that what I’ve done is right— because sometimes, to make things better you have to make them worse first. There’s a price you have to pay—and I made my choice to pay that price. I made that choice a long time ago when I turned my back on the Jedi… I’ve chosen my path… but sometimes I can’t help but doubt…”

Kylo fell into silence. He continued to stroke Millicent’s fur, concentrating on the feeling of her soft fur beneath his fingers, and slowly the rawness of the emotions that had been dug up because of his dream faded, leaving Kylo feeling much calmer than before.

Millicent was still lying in his arms, letting out a soft pur every now and then. When Kylo stopped stroking her fur, she looked up at him inquisitively and meowed.

Kylo felt a smile slip onto his lips. Petting her head, he said in a soft murmur, “I’m sorry, Millicent. I’ve made your fur all wet.”

Kylo put her down and went to fetch one of his ratty old cloaks from Millicent’s ‘bed’. He used it to towel the cat dry gently. Millicent’s tiny ginger head peaked out from within the voluminous folds of the cloak that Kylo had bundled all around her. She blinked and let out a soft meow. Kylo felt an incredible surge of fondness well up in him.

Millicent was a good cat, and she deserved a reward. Kylo decided that he would sneak out to the kitchens to steal her some more of the salmon that she liked so much as a treat.

The hallways were empty when Kylo made his way out, unsurprising given that it was currently past midnight by the ship’s chronometer. Only those crew members who were on the graveyard shift would still be up, and most of them would be stationed on the bridge, not wandering around the crew quarters. So when Kylo was on the way back to his rooms and saw that someone was standing in front of the airlock near his chambers, he was understandably surprised.

The dim lighting meant that he couldn’t make out much of the lurker’s features, other than the fact that he was a man of above average height. The man’s shoulders were shaking- sharp, jerky movements- and he was laughing.

Kylo was about to call out to the lurker to present himself and show Kylo his identification—but then he realized it wasn’t laughter he was hearing. It was sobbing. The man’s jerky movements brought his head into the light, and Kylo caught a flash of red hair.

General Hux.

It was the middle of the night and General Hux was standing in front of the airlock near Kylo’s quarters- the airlock where he thought Kylo had flushed Millicent out into space- and he was crying.

Some people still managed to look halfway presentable when crying, but Hux was not one of them. He was an ugly crier. His nose was blotchy and red, and there were fat tears rolling down his cheeks. He was crying without abandon; Kylo realized with faint horror that there was snot intermingled with his tears. He looked absolutely awful, totally wrecked.

Kylo stood there, frozen to the spot. He felt as though he had been wrong-footed by the universe, the metaphorical rug pulled out from underneath his feet. An intense feeling of what he finally allowed himself to admit as _guilt_ surged up in his chest, along with something that felt too much like pity.

Hux was Kylo’s worst enemy and a cruel, mass-murdering monster. Yet it was extremely hard to hate a man who was crying so helplessly, with such obvious grief. Hux was a horrible person, yes, but he really did love Millicent. Kylo was beginning to realize that the prank he had played on Hux was not just petty and mean-spirited; it was downright _cruel_. And now Hux was breaking down in front of an airlock and Snoke was threatening to have him _killed_ —

Kylo had never intended for things to go this far…

Kylo took a step forward and at the sound of his boot heel hitting the deck, Hux jerked up as though he had been electrocuted, spinning around to face Kylo. There was an expression of shocked dismay on his face, no doubt from the shame from being caught in such a vulnerable state.

Then Hux’s gaze fell upon Kylo’s face and his eyes widened briefly in horrified recognition before an expression of utter rage descended over his features.

“ _You_ ,” Hux hissed, his tone pure venom.

Kylo froze, unsure how to respond. He could only stare at Hux mutely.

Hux was glaring at him furiously through teary eyes. His words came out in short, staccato bursts of rage, “Come to gloat, have you? Is this what you wanted? To see me utterly disgraced? Well, you must be very happy now! Go ahead! Gloat. I know you want to. It won’t be enough for you until I’ve been humiliated in every way, will it?”

Hux swiped the back of his hand over his face in a sharp, angry motion, roughly dashing away his tears.

“I hope you’re happy. You’ve gotten everything you wanted. Maybe someday soon you’ll even get your wish and Snoke will let you kill me after he decides I’ve outlived my usefulness. I’m under no illusions— I’m just another cog in his war machine. A highly-placed cog, yes, but a cog nonetheless. Easily replaceable. Not like you— you and your _Sith sorcery_ -” Hux spat the words, frustration and jealousy clear in his tone. “You got to where you are now because of the way you were born. I had to claw my way up- bit by painful bit- pulling myself up using the bodies of my fallen rivals— _the things I’ve done_ …”

Hux looked at him, eyes glittering with tears and some dark emotion. His smile was all-teeth, not a trace of humour in it. “Let’s just say, they’d make what I did with Starkiller seem _kind_. And now… what do I have to show for it? A shipful of people laughing at my downfall, delighting in my every humiliation. And a command that’ll soon be taken from me— all because I can’t even get over the death of _a damned cat_!”

Hux was breathing heavily. His ragged breaths were loud in the otherwise dead silence of the ship’s corridors.

“I hope you’re happy now, Ren,” Hux said, and this time his tone was more defeated than angry. He spun around sharply and in three quick strides, he had disappeared around the corner.

Kylo, frozen, watched him go. He felt dazed, shock still reeling through him from the unexpectedly revealing emotional display he had just witnessed.

“Wait! Hux!” Kylo called out, finally finding his voice. He sprang into long-delayed action, but it was too late.

There was no sign of Hux—only the darkened, deserted hallways and the softly blinking lights of the ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite what it may seem from all the suffering I'm putting them through, I am actually very fond of these two big babies. Unfortunately, I have a nasty habit of torturing the characters I love. Oops?
> 
> Hang in there, guys. Things will get better for our favourite evil space duo eventually :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel that I should warn you guys that this chapter contains some pretty dark content courtesy of flashbacks. ~~The specific warnings are kinda spoilery so I've included them in the end notes. Please check them out if you don't mind spoilers!~~
> 
> Also, yes, I know that what I've written in this chapter contradicts the TFA novelization, but shhhh let's just ignore that, k?
> 
> EDIT: A reader has advised me to put the warnings in the front so I'm moving them here. My apologies to anyone who wasn't adequately warned previously!
> 
> This chapter contains: **i) child abuse, ii) threatened violence towards an animal and iii) off-screen but heavily implied actual violence towards an animal.**
> 
> Edit 2: Oh and if you want to skip those specific sections, start from "Kylo saw Hux, as a young boy..." to "Hux was older now, no longer a boy..." I'll provide a short summary in the end notes.

 

“I need to tell Hux.”

Kylo was back in his quarters, talking to a cat. Again.

Millicent was on the floor, busy polishing off the fish that Kylo had stolen for her.

“Oh, kriffing hell.” Kylo sat down heavily on his bed. He didn’t usually swear—it was something that Ben would do. Thanks to Han Solo, young Ben had acquired an impressive vocabulary of swear words, even some truly foul Huttese ones that always made Ben’s mother scowl and scold his father for being a bad influence. Nowadays, Kylo Ren expressed his anger by silently raging while destroying things with his lightsaber and Force-choking people. However, Kylo decided that this was a situation that merited an exception.

“I need to apologize to him and tell him you’re alive—but I don’t know how I should do it! Do I stop him after a meeting and tell him? People might overhear… and if the news got back to Snoke, well… Scratch that idea. Should I go to his rooms and tell him?”

For some reason, the thought of going to Hux’s quarters seemed a little too personal. Too… intimate.

“Nah, scratch that too. It’ll be so awkward. Oh stars, this is just too hard! Who knew that owning up to the horrible thing you did would be so nerve-wrecking?”

He cast a desperate look at Millicent. “What do you think I should do, Millicent?”

Millicent just yawned and started licking herself. There would be no help from that quarter.

“Urgh,” Kylo groaned and flopped back on his bed.

Kylo knew that he should be apologising to Hux right now, but he just- he just felt so _guilty_. The thought of facing Hux- of apologizing and admitting what he had done- it was just so daunting. He had nearly blurted out the truth after finding Hux crying at the airlock, but before the words could come out of Kylo’s horrible, lying mouth, Hux had disappeared— and now the moment had passed, and Kylo was left wondering how to screw up enough courage to do what needed to be done.

Kylo decided to sleep on it. He drifted off into slumber, Millicent curled up next to him on the bed, and this time there were no bad dreams.

Next morning came and Kylo still couldn’t quite bring himself to make his confession. He caught a few glimpses of Hux throughout the day. Hux was looking surprisingly put together for a man who had been bawling his eyes out in front of an airlock the night before. His hair was neater than it had been in days— almost at Hux’s pre-mourning levels of neatness, even. His uniform was neatly pressed, not a wrinkle in sight. Hux’s expression was cold and imperious. When he spoke, it was in clipped, no-nonsense tones. He was back to ordering people around with the same brisk efficiency as before. It seemed that he had truly taken Snoke’s threats to heart.

Faced with this abrupt return to form, Kylo was a little thrown, and also extra nervous at the thought of confronting Hux and making his confession. However, he knew that there was no choice. He had to tell Hux. It was the only right thing to do— Kylo would just have to man up and do it.

So that was how Kylo found himself standing outside the doors to Hux’s private chambers at 22:38, pressing the intercom button and manfully fighting down the urge to run away.

Kylo was the leader of the Knights of Ren. He had bravely faced down Supreme Leader Snoke without a flinch even after his abysmal failure with the scavenger girl and Starkiller Base. Compared to that, what was a simple meeting with General Hux, the man whose cat Kylo had (kind of, sort of, maybe) stolen?

However, even after pressing the intercom button a full fifteen times, there was still no response. Kylo stared at the closed doors in bewilderment and growing annoyance. He knew Hux was off-duty at 22:00, and he had already given the man more than ample time to return to his quarters—where was Hux and why wasn’t he answering his damn door?

“Hux!” he yelled, “Are you in there?”

The intercom beeped and a green light blinked on. Hux’s voice came over the intercom, biting anger clear even through the electronically-distorted tones, “You’re not welcome here, Ren. So kindly stop disturbing me and just _go the fuck away_.”

Kylo swiped a hand his hand through his hair. Suddenly, he was filled with an intense regret that he had left his mask back in his quarters. Hux was probably watching him right now through the security cameras.

“Look. Hux…” he said, the words coming out falteringly, “There’s something I have to tell you, and I’d… appreciate it if we could speak privately—”

There was a beep. The green light on the intercom switched off.

Hux had just cut him off, _the enormous bastard!_

Kylo tried his best to tamp down on his anger. Here he was trying to apologize to Hux, but the man sure wasn’t making it easy.

“HUX!” he yelled. “I’m going to stand here all night and yell at you until you let me in!”

No response.

“I’ll cut through your doors with my lightsaber if I have to! Don’t think I won’t do it!”

Yet, even that failed to garner a response. Kylo gritted his teeth, cursing Hux and his incredibly annoying mulishness. He had half a mind to ignite his lightsaber and cut through Hux’s doors like he had threatened to, but much as Kylo hated to admit it, he had already done quite enough to Hux.

With a touch of the Force to the door mechanisms, Hux’s room doors whooshed open easily. Kylo stepped in, boot heels clacking on the metal floor.

A high-backed black leather chair swivelled around to reveal Hux—the glare on his face was pure murder.

“Ren,” he hissed, “You are _trespassing_. These are my _private_ quarters. _Get out_.”

“Hux, just hear me out—” Kylo began, but Hux cut him off, “I always knew you had little to no regard for rules and regulations— what with you going around and smashing up my ship without care for the consequences all the bloody time—”

Kylo refrained from pointing out that the Finalizer was not a ‘ _my ship_ ’, but rather an ‘ _our ship_ ’, given that technically they were sharing command. He had a feeling that that would only rile Hux up more, and if Hux got any more agitated, he would probably explode and jettison himself straight through the hull of the Finalizer and out into space from the sheer force of his rage.

“—but this has gone too far. You will leave now, or I will be forced to call the guards. Or take action myself to defend my right to privacy—” As he spoke, Hux drew his blaster from his belt and aimed it at Kylo.

With a wave of his hand, Kylo tore the blaster from Hux’s hand with the Force. The weapon sailed towards Kylo and he caught it easily with one hand.

If Kylo thought that Hux was angry previously, it was nothing compared to the sheer, unadulterated rage that was radiating off him now.

“How dare you?” Hux spat. “Have you not tormented me enough, Ren? First, you kill my cat. Then you come to gloat and watch me abase myself at the airlock where you killed my cat. And now you force your way into my private quarters to harass me in the middle of the night— is there no place safe from you, Ren? Are you trying to drive me mad? Will it not be enough for you until I’ve lost the last threads of my sanity? When will you finally leave me alo—”

“Hux, I’m here to apologise,” Kylo said loudly, over Hux’s angry tirade, and that stopped Hux short. He stared at Kylo in undisguised shock for a moment. Then he burst into bitter laughter.

“You?... _Apologise?_ My ears must be deceiving me. Because there is no way in hell that the great Kylo Ren would ever bring himself to do something as— as humble as apologise.”

Kylo forced himself not to react in anger. By some great force of will, he managed to say in a tone of extremely forced calmness, “I’m sorry, alright? About Millicent. I shouldn’t have li—”

But Kylo’s attempted confession was cut off when Hux burst into laughter again, harsh and rasping. “ _Sorry?_ What do you have to be sorry for?”

Kylo stared at Hux in shock. Of all the reactions he’d expected Hux to have, this was definitely not one of them. “What—?”

Hux was smiling thinly. It looked horrible, a rictus of a grin, like the stretched out, forced smile of a corpse that had died that way. His grey-green eyes gleamed with a strange, dark intensity. “I should be _thanking you_ , Ren. For the timely reminder. I had allowed myself to grow— _weak_. _Sentimental_.”

Hux laughed again, and the dark rasp of his chuckle left an ominous feeling of dread crawling down Kylo’s spine.

“You were right to throw my own words back at me. I had allowed myself to forget the cardinal rule of survival—caring is not an advantage. It’s a liability. Attachment only weakens you. I was foolish, letting that damned animal into my heart, and so I paid for it. But you showed me the error of my ways. I won’t make that mistake again.” Hux’s smile made Kylo’s skin crawl, “I’m stronger now, with that thing out of my life.”

Kylo stared at Hux in incredulity and growing horror. “But… you…”

_Love Millicent._

Hux continued, tone harsh and with laced with contempt, “I should have gotten rid of that animal a long time ago. It was an unacceptable weakness. I don’t know what I was thinking when I allowed it into my life. The way I see it, its death is a great blessing. If it were still alive now, I would flush it out of that airlock myself.” Hux smiled at him, eyes hard and sharp, and Kylo felt sick at the sight. “That’s why I should thank you for this, Kylo Ren. You may not have intended it, but you’ve saved me from my own weakness.”

Kylo could only stare at Hux speechlessly. Hux must be lying—after all he had mourned Millicent so much. He had cried so bitterly over her last night. Surely that couldn’t all change in the span of a single night; Hux must be lying that he didn’t care a whit about her anymore…

But the Force confirmed the truth of Hux’s words. Hux’s emotions and thoughts, normally closed to Kylo unless he made a conscious effort to read the general’s mind, were an open book now, almost as though Hux was deliberately projecting at him. From what Kylo could sense, it seemed that Hux really did sincerely believe in what he had said.

Kylo was absolutely horrified, sick at heart. He thought of Millicent as he had left her, curled up on Kylo’s bed, surrounded by the ratty old cloaks she had grown to love. Millicent was such a good cat, so incredibly affectionate and loving, and Hux had just said that _he would flush her out of the airlock himself_.

All thoughts of telling Hux the truth fled from Kylo’s mind. He couldn’t let Hux harm Millicent.

Hux was smiling at Kylo’s obvious shock and revulsion. “Still feel the need to apologise now, Ren?” he said, voice silky.

“No,” Kylo bit out, anger making his tone curt. “Not at all.”

He couldn’t believe that he had ever felt sorry for Hux. He couldn’t believe that he had actually apologised to this monster.

“Then get out of my rooms.”

“Gladly.”

Kylo spun sharply on his heel, anger still simmering in his chest, and turned to go.

Hux spoke up again, “My blaster, Ren.”

Kylo almost felt like throwing the thing at Hux’s face, but he restrained himself. “I think I’ll hang on to it,” he said instead, acting on the sudden spiteful impulse that had risen in him. “As a reward for ridding you of your ‘ _weakness_ ’.”

“Stop being such a child and give my weapon back to me,” Hux said angrily.

“No,” Kylo said.

Hux gritted his teeth. “This is your last warning. Give. It. Back.”

Kylo smirked. “ _No_.”

Teeth bared, Hux lunged at Kylo, hand outstretched to make a grab for his blaster.

Kylo caught Hux’s hand easily, and he smirked. But suddenly, unexpectedly, at that point of skin to skin contact, emotion exploded through his mind- _anger, hatred, jealousy_ \- followed by memories. Memories that were not his—

 

\---

 

Kylo saw Hux, as a young boy barely old enough to be called a teenager, hiking through the woods near his home.

It was training for wilderness survival. Hux was about to enter the Academy and his father was determined that he would be top of all his classes. Therefore, he often sent Hux on solo ‘training sessions’. Others might have called this unreasonable, even cruel, but Hux Sr. was big on the ‘throw them in the deep end and they either sink or learn to swim’ school of teaching and Hux was already used to it; he had been trained this way since he was old enough to hold a pen.

Currently, Hux was on his guard, blaster drawn. He had been warned that there was a pack of Kath Hounds in the area. Kath Hounds were usually tame; some of the Coruscant upper class even kept them as pets. However, these hounds were wild ones, probably bred from an original stock of pets that had gotten loose and then gone feral. The animals could potentially be vicious. Hux had seen pictures of Kath Hounds before—they had wickedly sharp claws and teeth. He shuddered a little at the thought of those teeth sinking into him and raised his blaster a little higher.

There came the crackle of a breaking twig. Hux spun, adrenaline pumping, and aimed his blaster at the source of the sound.

A small Kath Hound pup stared back at him. It was tiny, probably the runt of the litter, and Hux lowered his blaster fractionally. There was no way this little thing would be able to harm him.

Hux walked closer, curious despite himself. He had never seen a Kath Hound except in pictures and this one seemed harmless enough. As Hux neared, the pup let out a little whine and shifted a little closer. Hux realized that it was thin enough that he could see its ribs. One of its ears was bleeding, and it was limping. It looked utterly pathetic.

Against his better sense, Hux felt a stirring of pity. He was abruptly reminded of his childhood dreams of owning a Kath hound. His younger self had liked their red fur—it matched the colour of Hux’s own hair. Of course, Hux had never dared to ask for one as pet. Any suggestion of having a pet would have been ruthlessly squashed by his father.

Now, Hux found himself bending down, settling himself on his knees. He dug out a ration bar from his pack and tentatively held it out towards the animal. The Kath Hound pup let out a happy little yip and limped its way over to Hux.

Smiling, Hux watched it eat the bar before coaxing it into his arms with another one. The pup came without protest. Hux decided he would sneak the animal back with him and keep it in his room secretly until it healed. After all it would never survive if Hux left it out in the wild.

It’s not like he was really going to keep it as a pet. This would just be a temporary thing…

 

\---

 

Hux watched as the Kath Hound pup attempted to gnaw at one of his smelly old socks, its stubby little tail wagging happily. One of his hands rested on the animal’s back, lightly stroking it. He was trying to think of a name for the pup. He wanted something to do with ‘red’, to match the colour of the hound’s fur.

“What do you think about Redbeard?” he asked the pup. Hux’s history tutor had told him that is was the name of an ancient emperor and also a naval commander who used to be a pirate. Hux used to dream of being a pirate when he was much younger, but his father had stamped that fanciful notion out of him. Now Hux much preferred the idea of being a commander. And someday, maybe even an emperor? After all, his father had always told him that it was his destiny to rule the galaxy…

“Yes, Redbeard’s a good name,” Hux said firmly. He smiled at the hound. “I think I’ll call you Reddie for short…”

 

\---

 

Hux stood in front of his father. His face was wet with tears. Redbeard was cowering behind Hux’s legs, tail down, whining softly.

“Stop that pathetic snivelling, Brendon. Words cannot convey how disappointed I am in you,” Hux Sr. snapped, “You’re not a child anymore. Keeping an animal behind my back? Pets are nothing but a useless, pointless waste of time and resources. They’re a hindrance, a nuisance, and worst of all—a weakness! What do I always tell you, boy?”

When Hux didn’t reply, only sobbing harder, Hux Sr. repeated himself, and this time the threat in his voice was undeniable, “Answer me! What do I always tell you?”

Trying his best to speak through the sobs that wracked his small frame, Hux gasped out, “The weak die… Only the strong… survive.”

“And?”

“Sentiment… is a weakness.”

Hux Sr. sneered. “It’s good to see that you still have a half a brain left, boy. Now, put it to use and get rid of that thing.”

“Father, please,” Hux begged, “Redbeard’s just a puppy- and his leg’s still not completely healed, he won’t survive out there—”

“You even _named_ it? By the stars, boy—what’s gotten into that fool head of yours? I thought I had raised you better than this!”

Hux cringed at his father’s loud shouting, flinching away visibly. Behind his legs, Redbeard whimpered, probably sensing Hux’s fear.

“I don’t care whether it’s going to drop dead the moment you kick it off the doorstep. I want that animal gone. It’s made you _soft_. I won’t tolerate this kind of weakness in my own son.”

“Father, please, I’m begging you—just a few more days. I won’t keep him for any longer than that—”

“ENOUGH!” Hux Sr. roared. In one smooth motion he pulled a blaster from his hip and aimed it at the whimpering puppy. “If you can’t get rid of that damn animal yourself, I’ll shoot it dead right now.”

All the colour fled from Hux’s face. “Father, no!” The words fell out of him in a gabbled rush, “I’ll take him away now. Please, just don’t kill him.”

Hux Sr. sneered, contempt clear in his expression, but he lowered his blaster. “Get it out of my sight. The next time I see it, it’s dead.”

He strode away, coat flaring behind him.

Hux fell to his knees, tears still streaming down his face. He hugged the puppy to himself, sobbing quietly. “I’m sorry, Reddie,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry…”

 

\---

 

Hux was sitting on the ground inside his house, back against the door. His head was bowed in abject misery and he was crying.

There was a low whine coming from the other side of the door. A bark. Then the noise of furious scrabbling, claws on metal. The door thudded as something threw its weight against it.

“Reddie, you have to go,” Hux said brokenly. “I told you. You have to stay away. He’ll kill you if he sees you.”

The whining started again. Hux scrubbed at his eyes and trying to ignore the way his heart was breaking. “Please, just go. Reddie, this is for your own good.”

More scrabbling and whining. When there was no response from Hux, the whining turned into barking, then full-out howling. Hux swore. “Reddie, keep it down!” he hissed, “He might hear you!”

The howling didn’t stop.

Hux got up. He pressed a button on the door control panel, and the door whooshed open.

Before it even fully opened, Redbeard was already running in, barking happily and dancing around Hux, jumping up and down. The Kath Hound’s tail was wagging so fast that it was practically a red blur.

“Shhh! Keep quiet, Reddie!” Hux said. He knew he should be trying to chase the pup away, but he was just too heartsick to do it right now. Instead he grabbed the Kath Hound pup into his arms and hugged him, trying to immortalize in his memory the warm weight of the puppy, the soft feeling of his fur. A few tears leaked from his eyelids, falling wetly onto Redbeard’s red coat.

“I know you don’t want to go,” he said softly, “I don’t want you to go too. But you have to. My father will kill you otherwise.”

Hux walked out of the house, the puppy in his arms. He set the animal on the ground.

“Go away! Get out of here, you stupid animal!” Hux yelled, but Redbeard just sat there, tail wagging and tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Hux sat down on the ground, feeling extremely helpless. He didn’t know how to get rid of Redbeard. He had already released the Kath Hound out in the woods once, and yet Redbeard had somehow found his way back to the house. Oh, by the stars, it was just so hopeless. Why did Kath Hounds have to be so kriffing loyal?

Then Hux’s hand brushed against something rough on the ground. His fingers closed on a piece of rock.

Suddenly Hux knew what he had to do, and he knew that it was the only right thing to do, but that didn’t make it any easier.

With the stone in his hand, he raised his arm and took aim.

Redbeard looked at him inquisitively, trustingly, ears pricked up and head cocked to one side, as though this was some new game they were playing, and Hux nearly lost his nerve.

However, he steeled himself. Sometimes you had to do bad things to achieve a greater good.

Tears blurred Hux’s vision. The first rock missed the Kath Hound by nearly a foot and Redbeard just barked and sat there, tail wagging. The second rock was much closer, missing only by inches. The third nearly struck the pup, barely clipping the ends of his fur. Still, Redbeard did not leave.

“Reddie, please!” Hux begged, “Don’t make me do this.”

Redbeard still did not leave.

Eyes burning with tears, Hux took careful aim.

He repeated his father’s words to himself in a soft whisper, “The weak die. Only the strong survive. Sentiment is a weakness…”

 

\---

 

Afterwards Hux lay in bed at night, feeling absolutely wretched. There was an ache in his chest, almost as though there was an actual physical wound there. If this was what it felt like to be heartbroken, Hux wished he could tear his own heart out.

That was when he resolved that he would never feel like this again. He had hated his father for doing this to him at first, but now he realized that his father was right. Caring was only a weakness. After all, hadn’t his father raised him on stories of how he had torn his enemies down by using their loved ones against them? It was a cruel world out there and if Hux was to survive, he must never allow himself any weaknesses whatsoever…

 

\---

 

Hux was older now, no longer a boy but a man in his late twenties. He was standing in the midst of a burning village, snow falling all around him. The battalion of stormtroopers under his command had spread throughout the village. Intermittently, the sound of screaming and blaster fire reached Hux’s ears.

The heat of the flames had melted some of the snow, and it had become a muddy, dirty brown slush. Hux eyed the slush with distaste. It would get all over his boots, and probably even his coat. Hux hated it when his coat got dirty. This was one of the reasons why he loathed leading ground missions so much.

Hux was cursing his luck, wishing he could be back on the nice, warm shuttle, when a flash of movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Hux spun around, blaster already drawn and ready to fire before he had even fully completed his turn.

Eyes narrowed, Hux scanned his surroundings for danger. His gaze was drawn to the previous source of movement. One of the bodies on the snow had moved. However, it was undeniable that the body was a corpse. The man had probably been dead for quite a while, judging from the dried blood around a large, ugly blaster wound on the dead centre of the corpse’s forehead. The dead villager’s blood had stained the snow around it a dark, rich red, like the colour of the fine red Corellian wine that Hux had waiting for him back on the ship once this thoroughly unpleasant mission was done with.

Hux watched the corpse intently and was rewarded for his scrutiny when the corpse’s arm moved again. A small kitten, fur matted with blood from the corpse, emerged from behind the arm. It was evident that its previous struggles to get out from beneath the dead body were the cause of the movement that Hux had caught.

The kitten limped away from the body, meowing piteously and shivering. Even with all the blood that covered the cat’s fur, Hux could tell that it was a ginger. Just like him.

_Just like Reddie,_ his traitorous mind supplied.

Against his will, Hux began to feel sorry for the animal. It was just a kitten, wounded and cold and alone in the snow. He knew he shouldn’t, but his old, damnable weakness was acting up again…

A figure in white armour cut across his vision. The stormtrooper in front of Hux raised his blaster, preparing to fire at the kitten—

“Stop,” Hux commanded.

“Sir?” the trooper said, lowering his weapon.

“Leave it.”

There was something quizzical about the tilt of the stormtrooper’s helmet as he said, “But sir, I thought your orders were to—”

“Kill everything in this village and then raze it to the ground. Yes, trooper, I remember. I think I can recall the orders that I issued myself just five minutes ago without you around to _oh so helpfully remind me_.” Hux narrowed his eyes, before saying, voice silky and dangerously soft, “Now I’m telling you the leave the kriffing animal alone. Tell me, JB-007. Are you _questioning_ a direct order from your commanding officer?”

Cowed, the trooper bowed his head contritely.

“Sorry, Sir. Won’t happen again, Sir.”

“Why are you still here? Don’t you have more people to kill?” Hux said bitingly, and the stormtrooper snapped him a crisp salute before striding off with brisk efficiency.

Hux walked towards the kitten and knelt down on the snow to try to pick it up. However, the animal was extremely skittish. It kept shying away from Hux, and after Hux made one too many attempts at grabbing it, it lashed out at him, hissing and trying to claw him. However, far from angering Hux, this only drew a chuckle from him. “A fighter, are you?” Hux said, “I like that.”

Eventually, Hux gave up trying to capture the kitten by force. He waylaid one of the passing stormtroopers and ordered the man to hand over some of his rations. With the rations from the luckless stormtrooper, Hux managed to coax the frightened kitten into his arms. He held it against his chest, hoping that he could warm the animal through his body heat and stop it from shivering.

After a while, Hux realized that this wasn’t working. He signalled a nearby stormtrooper with a sharp gesture and the man came marching over obediently. “Hold this,” he said and held the cat out to the trooper.

“What?” the bewildered trooper said before belatedly adding, “Sir.”

Hux sighed. Perhaps he needed to start weeding out more of the troops. Intelligence seemed to be sadly lacking in many of them.

“Just hold the damn cat, trooper,” Hux said before unceremoniously dumping the kitten into the stunned stormtrooper’s arms.

“Y-yes, Sir,” the man stuttered. He held the kitten gingerly, like it was a live grenade that could explode any second. He somehow managed to convey the impression of being incredibly nervous and awkward, even with his full body armour and face-covering helmet.

Hux snorted, shaking his head. With quick, efficient motions, he shrugged off his coat. He took the kitten back from the stormtrooper and bundled the cat up in his coat, uncaring of the way the blood from the animal’s fur got smeared onto the fabric. The cat meowed contentedly, snuggling into the warmth of Hux’s thick woollen greatcoat, and Hux couldn’t help the slight twitch that his lips gave.

He looked up to see the trooper still staring at him. “Well? What are you gawking at? Go do your job, shoot a few more people.”

“Sir! Yes, Sir!” The trooper scurried off.

Hux looked at the sleeping kitten in his arms, wrapped up in his coat. Despite the chill that was getting to him now that he had taken off his coat, Hux felt warmth blossoming in his chest. Against his better judgment, he decided that perhaps this one time, he could make an exception to his usual rule. After all, it got quite lonely up on the Finalizer sometimes, and Hux could do with some company. Hux rarely allowed himself any luxuries; surely it wouldn’t hurt to allow himself one small indulgence now?

It was with those thoughts in mind that Hux carried the sleeping kitten up to the shuttle, and into his life.

 

\---

 

Hux was in the pilot’s seat of a small shuttle, cursing up a storm as he attempted to make a controlled landing despite the shuttle’s rapid, reckless descent. The shuttle hit the ground with a great juddering thud that made the hull creak and groan alarmingly. Heedless of the terrible landing he had just made, so badly done it could practically have been called a crash, Hux sprang up from his seat immediately.

“Stay here,” he ordered Millicent, who was huddled under the navigation console, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. “ _Stay_ , Millie. I mean it.”

The shuttle’s ramp had barely finished lowering before Hux was leaping down, his boots sinking deep into the snow. Still cursing under his breath, Hux pulled out a small device that displayed a blinking red dot. He held the tracking device in one hand, his blaster in another—there was no telling what dangers he might face in this forest.

For what was probably the hundredth time, Hux cursed the fact that he hadn’t had the time to bring any stormtroopers with him onto the shuttle. He would just have to do this alone.

Following the directions from his device, Hux made his way through the dark woods. Snow and what was probably ash fell from the sky, making it hard to navigate. However, at long last, Hux found what he had come for.

Kylo Ren was lying in the snow, eyes closed and unmoving. There was a large gash across his face, weeping blood, and though it was hard to tell with his dark robes, Hux was pretty sure that they were also soaked with blood. Fear jolted Hux into action and he rushed to Ren’s side, dropping to his knees and placing two fingers to the side of the other man’s neck.

A pulse, sluggish and weak but nevertheless there. Ren was still alive. But probably, not for long…

Lying here in the snow like this, Kylo Ren looked so vulnerable, so fragile, like a broken porcelein doll. His face was lax in unconsciousness, and without the usual anger hardening the lines of his face, his features seemed almost delicate. He looked almost… innocent.

Hux thought about strategy, about political manuevering and the tactics that had been drilled into him by his father and his instructors at the Academy. Hux hadn’t gotten to where he was by playing nice. He knew all about using dirty, underhanded tricks to destroy his rivals and make a grab for power.

It would be so easy to leave Kylo Ren here to die. Or better, Hux could finish Ren off himself with his blaster. After all, Snoke’s pet pseudo-Sith was unconscious, gravely wounded. Ren wouldn’t be able to defend himself. In this moment, like never before, Kylo Ren was helpless, completely at Hux’s mercy.

Hux could end him with a single pull of a trigger. And then Hux would no longer have to share command of his ship with an arrogant, spoiled brat who went around terrorizing Hux’s crew and smashing up his ship with impunity, simply because he had the luck to be born with Force powers. And with his pet sorcerer gone, Snoke wouldn’t kill Hux, at least not until Hux ceased being useful to him. Hux may be a mere pawn as compared to Ren’s knight, but with Ren gone, Hux would become the best piece Snoke had left on the board. Snoke couldn’t afford to have him executed.

He knew that the blame for the destruction of Starkiller would fall on his head. There was every possibility that Snoke would have him killed the moment Hux brought Ren safely back to him. This was the only way for Hux to guarantee his survival.

Killing Ren would be the smart thing to do, the most practical choice. It was what Hux’s father would do. It was what all the other officers aboard the Finalizer would do. It was probably what Ren would do, if Ren were in his place—actually… that might not be true. Hux knew that Kylo Ren, for all his pretensions at being a Sith, was a little too honourable, a little too soft-hearted to truly fit in with the rest of them. Faced with his unarmed, defenceless rival, Hux couldn’t say with certainty whether Kylo Ren would do the pragmatic thing and kill him.

Nevertheless… for the sake of his survival, Hux had to do what must be done. Hux drew his blaster and pressed the barrel of it to the centre of Ren’s bloodied forehead. The other man didn’t stir.

_The weak die. Only the strong survive. Sentiment is a weakness._

Hux tried to make himself pull the trigger, but for some reason, his hand kept shaking and his finger wouldn’t move a single millimetre. Hux knew there was no time for him to dally; the planet was breaking up around them. Hux had to kill Kylo Ren _now—_

Beneath Hux’s blaster, Ren shifted, groaning weakly. Bloodied and battered, he looked so helpless, so broken…

Hux always did have a weakness for broken things, helpless and alone out in the cold, and just like on that day with a tiny ginger kitten on another snowy battlefield, Hux found himself making the very same mistake.

“I’m probably going to regret this,” he said to Kylo Ren’s unconscious form. He put his blaster away. Then he took off his coat and draped it over Ren, just like he had done for Millicent so long ago.

Hux gently lifted Kylo Ren up in his arms, his coat still neatly draped over the other man. Snow and ashes falling all around him, Hux slowly straightened up.

He took one step—then he staggered and nearly dropped Ren.

The other man was a dead weight, and with his lanky frame and wiry muscles, he was not a light man by any means. “Kriffing hell,” Hux huffed as he attempted to steady Ren in his arms, “You’re a whole lot heavier than Millie.”

With a lot of cursing, struggling, panting for breath, and eventually stooping to half-carrying, half-dragging Ren through the snow, Hux eventually made it back to the shuttle.

He laid Ren down on a cot, shooting the unconscious man an accusing glare as he grumbled, “Oh, my _arms_. I hate you, you heavy bastard.”

Conscious of the time pressure, Hux forced himself into a quick trot as he made his way to the cockpit, despite the burning ache in his legs and arms. Once Hux had piloted the shuttle safely out of the planet’s atmosphere and set the coordinates for a hyperspace jump, he heaved a sigh of relief.

Leaving the shuttle on autopilot, Hux made his way back to where Kylo Ren was lying in his cot. Millicent followed him in, meowing softly.

Ren was still unconscious and showed no signs of waking up soon. Using a wet cloth, Hux carefully wiped away the blood on Ren’s face, taking care not to put too much pressure on the ugly, weeping gash on his forehead.

Ren looked almost… peaceful now.

Idly, Hux brushed a fallen curl away from Kylo’s brow. Against his better judgment, he allowed his fingers to rest upon the other man’s pale skin, lightly tracing the line of Ren’s cheek.

Shaking his head wearily, Hux smiled thinly. He let out a bark of laughter, and there was nothing even remotely happy about it. In a soft, barely audible murmur, he said, “By the stars, things would be so much easier if you weren’t so goddamned attractive—”

**Wait _. What?_**

The mental connection snapped shut in an instant, Kylo’s raw shock jolting him out of Hux’s mind.

He realized he was still holding Hux’s hand and he dropped it like it was a poisonous snake.

Hux was screaming in nearly incoherent rage. His face was a deep shade of red, so dark it was nearly puce. “You kriffing bastard! _STAY OUT OF MY MIND_ _!_ ”

Kylo just stared at him in silence, still stunned from the incredible shock he had received. Hux thought he was _attractive?_

Hux wrested the blaster from Kylo’s unresisting fingers. The general’s eyes were wild, bright with a manic edge of hysteria, as he started waving the blaster in Kylo’s face, screaming furiously all the while, “GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM! NOW!!”

Mind reeling with shock and absolutely dumbstruck, Kylo obeyed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited to add in the summary:
> 
> Kylo sees a flashback of Hux's childhood. Hux found an injured Kath Hound pup in the woods, brought it home to care for it and named it Redbeard/Reddie. His father found out and disapproved. Hux was forced to do a cruel thing to the puppy in order to save it from Hux Sr. and he was heartbroken as a result. From then on he vowed never to let himself feel like that again.
> 
> \--
> 
> The plot thickens... Are these the beginning whiffs of the promised Kylux I smell in the air? ;) Next chapter: Kylo does something he should have done a very long time ago.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, just a quick FYI for those who don't already know- refresher is another word for bathroom in Star Wars.

Kylo made his way back to his quarters, moving dazedly through the corridors like a zombie. He barely noticed the crew members scurrying to get out of his way, or the unfortunate stormtrooper he nearly bowled over.

His room door had barely closed behind him before Kylo all but collapsed onto his bed, startling Millicent out of her nap. The cat padded over to him and climbed on top of his stomach, where she settled herself, purring. Kylo was so distracted that he just let her stay there instead of shooing her off onto the bed.

His mind was whirling. Hux found him _attractive_?

Kylo just couldn’t stop thinking about it. Hux’s words were replaying in his mind like a broken record. Kylo could still see the thin, humourless smile on Hux’s face, the bitter, slightly broken way he had laughed…

He knew that there were much more important revelations for him to focus on—such as the fact that Hux was apparently perfectly fine with chucking Millicent out of an airlock now… or you know, the _small detail_ that Hux had very nearly killed him, but then decided to spare Kylo at the last second.

However, Kylo just couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Hux found him attractive. The man always acted so cold, he was practically the human personification of the planet Hoth. Kylo had never even seen a single _hint_ from Hux that Hux considered Kylo as anything more than his most hated rival—or an annoying bug that Hux wanted to squash under his boot heel and then scrap off with an extremely disgusted sneer.

And now Kylo was forced to wonder. Exactly how much of Hux’s seeming hatred for Kylo stemmed from their actual rivalry? And how much of it stemmed from the fact that the general was reluctantly attracted to him?

It wasn’t as though Kylo had missed the fact that Hux was frankly rather good-looking himself, but the man was always too much of a tightly wound up asshole for Kylo to ever seriously consider acting on that basal level of attraction. The thought that Hux might also be attracted to him— that Hux might have been looking at Kylo, seething in resentment and hating his guts, but also secretly fantasizing about the way he would—

_Well_. Kylo should probably stop that train of thought right there, unless he was in the mood for a cold shower.

And yet, the more Kylo thought about it, the more he considered the possibility that perhaps there was something more to this than he first thought. Perhaps Hux’s feelings for him extended beyond mere lust. Kylo thought of the gentle way Hux had cleaned his wounds, the way Hux had lightly laid his fingers on the curve of Kylo’s cheek… Hux had _spared_ Kylo, even though it made so much more sense not to. Even though it meant that he was throwing away an opportunity to save his own life…

Against his will, Kylo found himself thinking of the other things he had seen in Hux’s memories. He thought he was beginning to understand just how Hux had become the man he was today.

Kylo, despite having had his own share of past tragedies, had to admit that his childhood had largely been a happy one. Han Solo, for his other faults, had been a good and loving father to Ben, at least for a time. Despite all that had happened afterwards, Kylo still held some grudging nostalgia for that period of his life when he had been a child. Young Ben Solo, growing up with his parents and his uncles Chewie and Luke—all those hours spent tinkering with the Millennium Falcon under his dad’s patient tutelage, the pure, unrestrained joy from being allowed to take the controls of the Falcon for the very first time, the proud way Leia had smiled as congratulated Ben on his first successful space flight…

Kylo fought down the pang of regret that rose in his chest.

When Kylo had been growing up with parents and uncles who doted on him and praised his achievements, Hux had grown up in a cold, loveless home with a father who did nothing but belittle him and cruelly put him down, trying his very best to crush any nascent bit of kindness or compassion- of _humanity-_ in Hux before it had the chance to form.

Suddenly, Kylo could vividly picture Hux’s life—raised by a man who saw him less as a son and more as a tool he was trying to hone into a proper weapon, spending his adulthood clawing his way up the ranks of the First Order by being more crafty, bloodthirsty and ruthless than his rivals, and finally getting to the top but never being able to let his guard down for a single second, lest someone stab him in the back in order to take his place.

In this world of cut-throat cruelty and darkness, if Hux had shown any sign of kindness or mercy, he would have been killed a long time ago. When Hux had said all those things to Kylo about caring not being an advantage, perhaps he had even truly believed that he was giving Kylo good advice.

And could Kylo really fault Hux for being so cruel with his words? After all, how many times had Hux received a single kind word in his life? How many times had Kylo himself spoken to Hux kindly? How lonely must Hux’s life be—that the cat he rescued from a village that he himself had ordered destroyed, was his sole source of affection and companionship? Maybe the reason why Hux treated others so badly was because he had been treated the same way his whole life. If cruelty and suffering was all he had ever known, did it not make sense that those were the only things he knew how to deal out in return?

Even then, even despite all of that, Hux had still managed to find that small sliver of humanity inside himself. He had saved Millicent. He had spared Kylo. But every time Hux had dared to indulge any of his softer impulses, every time he had shown a shred of kindness or compassion, the universe had punished him for it.

It was with incredible shame that Kylo admitted that he himself was to blame for most of that. Hux had been entirely right when he said that he was probably going to regret saving Kylo’s life.

Kylo felt as though the guilt would overwhelm him. Even when he hadn’t yet known the true extent of Hux’s mercy towards him, he should have remembered that Hux had rescued him from certain death. It didn’t matter that Hux was always so incredibly insufferable about it, or that Snoke had expressly commanded it of him, the fact of it was that Kylo owed Hux his life.

And what had Kylo done in return? Pretended to flush Hux’s beloved cat out of an airlock just to play a nasty, mean-spirited prank on him.

How could Kylo have been so thoughtless? So foolish? So carelessly cruel? For the very first time in his life, Kylo was forced to admit that perhaps there was some grain of truth to what Hux always said about him having the emotional maturity of a child.

“I really screwed up, Millie,” Kylo said softly.

Millicent, still seated on Kylo’s stomach, just purred and kneaded his stomach. Kylo absentmindedly petted her head in a sort of Pavlovian response. He really needed to figure out what he was going to do about her.

After everything he had learnt about Hux, it was hard to keep thinking of him as the cold, unfeeling monster Kylo had always believed he was. Hux had said that he would flush Millicent out of the airlock himself if she were still alive— _but would he, really?_

Kylo remembered all too well the way he had denied feeling anything when he killed Han Solo except happiness. The way he had claimed that he would have gladly killed the man anyway, even if Snoke hadn’t ordered it. However, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Kylo’s dreams were proof enough of that.

Kylo knew that Hux, just like Kylo himself, resented being pitied or viewed as weak. In some ways, they were scarily similar. Could Hux too have been denying his affection for Millicent as a defence mechanism? Hux may have truly believed in that very moment that he said it that he would have gladly flushed Millicent out of an airlock, but Kylo was well aware of the human capacity for self-deception.

On the other hand, it was entirely possible that this latest tragedy had been the last straw for the general. Perhaps Hux had really decided to wean himself of all his softer feelings after all, lest he suffer because of them yet again. Even the strongest of spirits could be crushed with the application of enough pain—Kylo knew that keenly, from all the ‘interrogation’ he had to do in his line of work. Perhaps Kylo had succeeded where Hux’s father had failed in breaking Hux and burning away the last shreds of his humanity. The thought sickened Kylo. Would Hux really kill Millicent, just to prove to Snoke and the rest of the world that he was still fit for command?

Kylo wanted to return Millicent to Hux. After all, Millie deserved to be with her owner. Much as Kylo enjoyed her company, he knew that he was only an interloper, not her true master, and after all the horrible things he had done, he didn’t deserve to keep her.

But dare he gamble with Millicent’s life?

“What should I do, Millicent?” Kylo said, before repeating, softer, “What should I do?”

Millicent meowed, cocking her head to one side.

Kylo sighed, smiling sadly.

Much as he tried to deny it and stamp it out, there was still something of an idealist in him. At the end of the day, Kylo chose to believe in Hux— in the small, fleeting glimpses of humanity he had seen in the other man. Returning Millicent to Hux was the right thing to do, and it may be risky, but Kylo would just have to take that risk.

He decided he’d sneak into Hux’s rooms while Hux was away and release Millicent in there. However, despite his choice to believe in Hux’s gentler side, Kylo wasn’t about to leave everything to fate. And that was why Kylo also decided he’d hide himself somewhere in Hux’s rooms, ready to leap out and intervene if Hux showed even the slightest hint of aggression towards Millicent.

A touch of the Force to Hux’s door mechanisms and Kylo was once again in the general’s private quarters. Kylo shook his head, lips twitching wryly. Hux really should invest in a better security system.

Kylo bent down, releasing Millicent from his arms, where she had been hidden in the folds of his cloak. As Kylo slung his cloak back onto himself, Millicent raised her head to sniff the air, meowed, and immediately made a beeline for Hux’s bed. She leapt on it. Then ever so nonchalantly, as though she had never been away at all, she curled up and fell asleep. Kylo’s lips twitched into a small smile at the sight.

While waiting for Hux to return from his meeting with Phasma, Kylo decided to amuse himself by snooping through the contents of Hux’s rooms. He quickly got bored of looking through Hux’s collection of books. They seemed to be either about military tactics or engineering and weapons technology—all of which Kylo was thoroughly uninterested in.

Kylo decided to take a peek at Hux’s refresher instead. The man’s appearance was so carefully maintained, and Kylo was rather curious as to what exactly went into it. As Kylo expected, Hux had _a lot_ of toiletries. They were practically occupying every free inch of surface in Hux’s refresher. Kylo wondered how it was humanly possible for one man to own so many hair products.

Kylo poked his way through Hux’s facial cleansers, his aftershave (for a spicy and sexy, uniquely masculine scent, as the bottle advertised), and Hux’s collection of expensive, floral-scented shower gels (a lavender-scented one called Gentle Meadows Aroma Therapy seemed to be his favourite; Kylo found that he actually found the scent surprisingly agreeable). He picked up what looked like an industrial-sized bottle of hair gel and opened it. More than half of it was already gone. Kylo snorted and put it away before picking up a bottle of what looked like hair conditioner. He read the label, “For luscious, supple locks with natural inner shine—” Kylo rolled his eyes, “Oh, for the love of the Force—”

Kylo nearly dropped the bottle when he heard the sound of voices coming from outside. Luckily, he managed to catch the bottle with the Force before it could hit the metal floor and he gently settled it back where it belonged.

Shit. Hux was back early. The sound of talking was probably him bidding goodnight to his companion, who was most likely Phasma. Kylo had been so distracted by his perusal of Hux’s ridiculous hair products that he hadn’t even sensed Hux’s arrival through the Force. Quickly darting out of the refresher, Kylo scanned the room for a suitable hiding place.

His eyes fell on the closet where Hux kept all his stupid uniforms and greatcoats. Kylo quickly ducked in, closing the doors of the closet just seconds before he heard the whooshing noise that signified Hux’s entry into his quarters.

He put one eye to the crack between the closet doors and squinted out. Hux was walking in through the doorway, the doors closing automatically behind him. His eyes were on the datapad he was holding and his brows were furrowed into a careworn frown. He looked utterly exhausted.

There was a soft meow.

Hux’s eyes shot up from his datapad. He stared in shock at the cat that was on his bed, the datapad falling from his hand and clattering to the ground.

Millicent ran up to Hux, meowing happily and rubbing herself against his legs, and this seemed to jolt Hux out of his stupor.

“Millie? Oh stars, Millie!”

Hux bent down and Millicent leapt into his arms. Tearing up, Hux hugged her to his chest as Millicent purred and nuzzled her head against his cheek. “I missed you so much, Millie, oh stars, so much. I thought you were dead. Oh, thank the stars. Thank you, thank you—” Hux’s halting words dissolved into incoherent sobbing. He turned his face into Millicent’s fur, hugging her tightly, as if afraid that the moment he let go, she would disappear again.

It was the perfect moment for Kylo to reveal himself and make a dramatic entrance while smirking victoriously and savouring Hux’s tears of gratitude and relief. That had, in fact, been Kylo’s intention all along. Kylo even had a little speech prepared to gloat to Hux about how Kylo had been right about him all along.

However, curiously, Kylo found that he didn’t want to do that now. Instead he felt as though he was intruding on an intensely private moment. He would have snuck out of Hux’s rooms if he could, but while the Force could make many miracles possible, it did not include the ability to make a person invisible, and Kylo didn’t want to Mind Trick Hux any more than he had to—especially after his accidental invasion of the other man’s mind just the day before. Perhaps this strange and unsettling feeling inside him was what people called emotional growth.

Kylo decided that he didn’t really like emotional growth. Despite what Hux liked to say, possessing the emotional maturity of a five year old wasn’t always a bad thing.

Kylo’s musings were interrupted by the sound of Hux’s voice, “You can come out now, Ren.”

Oh hell. How did Hux know? Kylo had been sure he had left no trace of his entrance, and Hux had the Force-sensitivity of a teaspoon. Maybe the general was just guessing, trying to trick Kylo into revealing his presence…

“Yes, I know you’re in there. I can see the edge of your blasted robes sticking out of my closet.”

Kylo looked down. In the dim interior of the closet it was hard to see anything. However, a sharp tug at his robes revealed that a corner of them had indeed snagged in the closet doors.

Kylo let out a small sigh of defeat before opening the doors and stepping out of the closet.  

Hux, Millicent in his arms, was staring straight at him, an unreadable expression on his face.

Kylo and he stared at each other in awkward silence for a while before Kylo finally said, “Hux.”

“Ren,” Hux said.

They stared at each other in silence again for a few moments more. This was _unbearable._ Kylo almost wished that Hux would get angry and start screaming at him again. At least then things would feel kind of normal again.

“I’m sorry I lied about your cat—” Kylo said, at the same time that Hux said, “So you were lying about my cat—”

They both lapsed into silence again. Finally, Kylo took the initiative to speak first, “I really am sorry about Millicent. I shouldn’t have lied to you about killing her. And I’m sorry about seeing your memories—” Feeling awkward, Kylo swiped a hand through his hair, his gaze skittering down at the floor, “I know you probably won’t believe me when I say this, but it really was an accident—”

“I believe you,” Hux said.

Kylo looked up to meet Hux’s eyes, stunned.

Hux was smiling thinly. “You may be a liar about other things, like the death of my cat, but this—this I think you wouldn’t lie about. After all, if you had invaded my mind with malicious intent, you wouldn’t be trying to apologise to me. No, you’d be _gloating_ about it.” Hux chuckled humourlessly. “You’ve certainly never taken any pains to conceal it when you read my thoughts previously.”

Kylo suddenly remembered all the times he had casually skimmed information off the general’s mind, whether to spite Hux or simply because he could and he felt like it. He was hit by a pang of guilt.

“I’m sorry about that too,” Kylo said, and Hux raised one disbelieving eyebrow at him.

“I really am,” Kylo insisted, meeting Hux’s gaze firmly. Impulsively, he added, “I promise I won’t deliberately invade your mind again, not unless you give me permission to.”

Now Hux was staring at him as though Kylo had gone completely mad. “That’s an incredibly foolish thing to say, Ren. Only _idiots_ or _idealists_ make promises in the absolute.”

It was clear from Hux’s biting tone that he thought that the words ‘idiots’ and ‘idealists’ were synonymous, and that both applied to Kylo.

Kylo shrugged.

“You’ve made your opinion on my intelligence clear before, so I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” he said, a wry twist to his lips, and Hux let out a huff of grudgingly amused laughter.

“Why are you doing this, Ren?” Hux said. “Returning Millicent to me? Apologising? Is this about what you saw in my mind yesterday? Because I don’t-” Hux’s lips twitched downwards as if he had bit down on something particularly sour, “-I don’t need your _pity_ …”

Just as Kylo had thought.

“It’s not pity, Hux,” Kylo said, even though that was not entirely the truth, “I just hate the thought of owing you. You saved my life when Starkiller collapsed. So I’m returning you your cat. You can consider us even now.”

Hux looked at Kylo for a long while, as if scrutinizing Kylo for the signs of a lie. Finally, he seemed to accept Kylo’s words as truth. “Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you for not killing Millicent or using her as a bargaining chip. You had no reason to show her- or me any mercy— after all, you and I are enemies. I suppose I should count myself lucky that you’re an honourable man. It pains me to say this, but… you have my gratitude, Ren.”

After he finished speaking, Hux looked away, as if embarrassed. Kylo was suddenly struck once again by the realization of how horrible Hux’s life must be—if he was thanking Kylo for simply doing the _decent thing_ , when it was Kylo who had caused this whole tragic mess of a disaster in the first place.

“Are we?” Kylo found himself saying. Hux’s gaze turned back on him, the other man frowning at Kylo in puzzlement.

“Enemies, that is,” Kylo said.

Hux looked at him, eyebrows raised, a mixture of incredulity and disbelief in his expression. “Aren’t we? I was under the impression that we are.”

“You did spare my life,” Kylo pointed out.

Hux narrowed his eyes at Kylo. “That- that was a moment of folly. And it doesn’t make us friends.”

“Plus, I did reunite you with your beloved cat.”

“The cat which _you_ stole,” Hux said, shooting Kylo a dour look, but Kylo could sense that Hux’s heart wasn’t really in it.

He grinned at Hux. “‘Stole’ is such an ugly word. I prefer _‘borrowed’_.”

Hux’s lips twitched in reluctant amusement and he snorted. “You’re a real piece of work, Ren,” he said, but his tone lacked its usual bite.

“Right back at you, General,” Kylo said, smirking.

Hux shook his head and let out a wryly amused huff of exasperation. “Ren, look, I appreciate you returning my cat to me, but you know that she can’t stay here, right?”

“She can’t?” Kylo said, bewildered.

“Everyone thinks she’s dead. Supreme Leader Snoke thinks she’s dead. If people see her, she _will_ be dead—because every junior officer on this ship now knows that they can get at me by killing her. We can’t risk anyone discovering that she’s still alive. And unlike you, I do have to entertain guests in my quarters. Not to mention, there’s Millie’s strange habit of sneaking out—”

“So?” Kylo said, “Just keep a better eye on her. Lock her in the ‘fresher if you have to. Put her on a leash and tie it somewhere. I managed to keep her secretly in my rooms for more than a week. It can’t be that hard.”

“Do you think I haven’t tried all of that?” Hux shot Kylo an annoyed look. “I don’t know how she does it, but she’s slipped out every single time. I’ve checked every lock, every vent, every possible tiny hole that she could have squeezed through… but nothing. It should be physically impossible, and yet—”

Kylo was suddenly reminded of his dream and he was hit by a disturbing thought.

“Are you sure that your cat doesn’t have the Force?” he blurted out before his brain could catch up with his mouth. He immediately felt extremely stupid.

“ _What_?” Hux stared at Kylo, somehow managing to convey utter incredulity and ‘ _are you completely nuts, Ren?_ ’ in one single word and an expressive arch of his eyebrows.

“Nothing,” Kylo muttered, scowling. “Just a stupid thought.”

Hux’s voice took on a very familiar, annoyingly snide tone. “Which makes it different from all your other thoughts, how?”

Kylo glared at him and Hux’s lips twitched into a small, victorious smile.

Kylo let him have that one. After all, Kylo did (kind of, sort of, maybe) steal his cat.

“In any case, Ren, I’m sure you’ve noticed that Millicent likes going to your rooms in particular.”

“Yes,” Kylo said, “The constant scent of cat pee on my helmet might have tipped me off about that.”

Hux ignored him. “And for some unfathomable reason, she seems to be content staying in your quarters. Force knows why, given that _you're_ also there.”

Kylo rolled his eyes and made a face, his usual, almost ingrained response to Hux’s childish attempts at insulting him, before remembering that he wasn’t wearing his mask now, which meant that Hux could see everything. He could practically feel Hux silently judging him.

“So with that in mind, I think the safest place for Millicent to stay right now is still with you,” Hux concluded.

“Fine. I’ll keep your stupid cat,” Kylo said. If he was maybe cheering a little on the inside at the thought of getting more to spend more time with Millicent, there was really no need for Hux to know.

Kylo pointed at Hux. “ _You’re_ bringing her food though. And changing her litter. And cleaning up the hairballs. And whatever else that I don’t want to do myself.”

“Of course I’m not going to just dump Millicent on you and wash my hands off her,” Hux snapped, glaring, “I wouldn’t even want to give her to you if I could avoid it. You do know that she’s still _my_ cat, don’t you? Even if you did kidnap her for close to a fortnight.”

“ _Borrow,_ ” Kylo insisted.

“Sure, Ren. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

After placing Millicent gently down on the bed, Hux held out a hand towards Kylo and brusquely demanded, “Give me your datapad.”

“Why should I?” Kylo said, almost automatically. It was practically second nature by now for him to refuse Hux’s requests on principle.

Hux let out an aggravated sigh and made another impatient gesture at Kylo. “I’m giving you my personal commlink number.”

Kylo stared at him, eyes wide.

“What?” he said, and his voice came out slightly strangled, “Why would you do that?”

Hux seemed a little affronted by Kylo’s response. Tone biting, he said, “So that we can make arrangements for when I come by your quarters? Do try to keep up, Ren. It’s not that hard.” He shot Kylo a look that implied he had all the intelligence of a rock.

“Right,” Kylo said, handing over his datapad, feeling very foolish now.

Hux was just giving Kylo his number. A completely normal occurrence. No hidden motives behind it at all. Just purely for the sake of Millicent. Of course. There was really no need for him to be blushing, so kriffing stop it, cheeks!

Of all the times for him not to be wearing his mask…

Fortunately for Kylo’s dignity, Hux was busying himself with Kylo’s datapad, keying in his commlink number with brusque, efficient taps. By the time Hux announced, “There. Done,” Kylo’s burning cheeks had been wrestled into submission and he had forced his face back into a normal, neutral expression.

Hux passed Kylo back his datapad, barely even looking at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow at oh seven hundred for Millicent’s breakfast,” he said with the same coolly professional tone of command that he used when declaring reporting times for the troops.

“Okay,” Kylo said. He stuffed his datapad back into his robes. Hux was still not looking at him.

“Goodnight then,” Kylo said, and he was internally cursing himself for how tentative he sounded.

Hux finally looked up, and perhaps it was just Kylo’s imagination, but it seemed to him that Hux’s eyes softened a little just then. “Goodnight, Ren,” he said, and his tone could almost have been described as _pleasant_ -for Hux at least- before his gaze fell on Kylo’s empty arms and he said dryly, “And don’t forget to take Millicent with you.”

Now Kylo started blushing in earnest. Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could he have been so distracted that he forgot about Millicent? It was Hux. It was all Hux’s fault. Hastily scooping up Millicent, Kylo shot Hux a glare. “I didn’t forget. I was just about to get her.”

“If you say so, Ren,” Hux said, in that same infuriating way that he always did.

Fuming, Kylo departed Hux’s chambers, Millicent in his arms and his cloak loosely bundled around her to hide her from any prying eyes until he reached the safety of his quarters. Honestly, Hux was absolutely insufferable! That smug, know-it-all bastard.

_But that’s how you like him,_ came the sudden stray thought. It was followed closely by, _It's one of the things you like most about him, really. His willingness to call you out on your shit._

Kylo stopped, standing stock-still in the middle of the deserted corridor; Millicent was meowing in protest at the jolt that Kylo's abrupt stop had caused her.

_What the kriffing hell_ _did I just think? Damn it! I don't like Hux at all-- I don't- I...  
_

It was then that Kylo realized that he might just be the tiniest bit of screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the Kylux begins... *delighted evil laughter*


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~Parenting~~ cat-rearing is not a competition, seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter owes much to [THIS](http://kelgrid.tumblr.com/post/139188502123/theres-no-vet-on-the-finalizer-and-hux-has-been) amazing comic by Kelgrid. I absolutely adore the idea of overly-worried cat-owner Hux.
> 
> Also, I was getting the weirdest sense of deja vu when writing a portion of this chapter (the part about masks and technological terrors), but I couldn't figure out if I was accidentally copying some fic i read before or if my mind was just playing tricks on me. Apologies if I have inadvertently plagiarized someone!

Kylo spent the next few hours trying to convince himself that he didn’t actually like Hux.

Kylo reminded himself that Hux was a certified asshole who regularly insulted him for kicks. He was pretty sure that one of Hux’s favourite pastimes was thinking of new and creative insults for Kylo’s intelligence, maturity and general existence. (The fact that Kylo actually kind of enjoyed trading insults with Hux was neither here nor there).

Moreover, Hux was, not to put too fine a point on it, an actual mass-murderer. So Hux loved his cat and (possibly, maybe, hopefully—wait, scratch that last one) Kylo? That shouldn’t make up for the fact that Hux was, despite the tragedies of his past and his few redeeming traits, a genuinely horrible person. Kylo knew his social life was deader than a decaying Bantha corpse, but even so, was he so pathetically desperate for any scrap of affection that he would fall for the man he had, up till a couple of days ago, believed to be his most hated enemy? Surely Kylo had more pride than that.

However, all of these extremely valid points just seemed to fade into the background, especially when Kylo recalled the way Hux had so very gently draped his greatcoat over Kylo and later, wiped the blood from his brow. It was very hard to keep reminding himself that liking Hux was a Very Bad Idea Indeed when Kylo just couldn’t stop thinking of just how much he liked Hux’s sly, sardonic smirks… or the frankly rather endearing way Hux had had let out that small bark of grudgingly amused laughter at Kylo’s joke. There was warmth in Kylo’s chest at the memory of the tender smile on Hux’s face as he hugged Millicent to himself, crying tears of pure joy and relief—

Damn it. Kylo was so screwed.

After giving up on the battle to convince himself that he didn’t have feelings for Hux, Kylo embarked on the battle to convince himself instead that it was a Very Bad Idea Indeed for him to act on said feelings for Hux. On this front, he found himself enjoying far greater success.

Maybe it was the fact that Kylo had had a little too much experience with rejection in the past; he had spent his entire life struggling to be good enough but always failing to measure up—first with his parents and the Jedi, then with Snoke and his continued failure to complete his grandfather’s legacy.

Kylo remembered the way that Hux had screamed about never forgiving Kylo after Kylo had lied to him about Millicent’s death. Granted, Hux appeared to have clean forgotten about that rather melodramatic promise of his, given the way he had thanked Kylo for returning Millicent to him… but this didn’t mean that Hux had completely forgiven Kylo. After all, if their places had been swapped and Hux had lied to Kylo about the death of his beloved cat, Kylo would most likely have hated Hux forever.

It was entirely possible that whatever nascent feelings Hux had for Kylo had been wiped clean away by Kylo’s foolish, cruel prank. How terribly ironic it would be—if the very same incident that led to Kylo discovering his changed feelings for Hux indeed led to Hux losing any interest in Kylo whatsoever. Wouldn’t that be just his luck?

What if Hux just laughed and told Kylo to stuff his pathetic crush back into the trash compactor that Kylo had crawled out from? Kylo could almost imagine the cruel, mocking way that Hux would say it— _Grow up, Ren. You pathetic, lovelorn fool. Stop wearing your heart on your sleeve, or somebody’s going to rip it out for you._

Kylo’s misery increased at the thought. Any idle notions he had entertained of propositioning Hux when he came by in the morning were obliterated just as quickly and cleanly as the planetary system that Hux had vaporized. For some reason, the thought of rough, hate-fuelled casual sex with Hux just didn’t quite hold the same appeal anymore and Kylo was just left feeling irrationally frustrated, as if he had been cheated of something he had never even known he had wanted before.

Thus it was with significant sullenness and a dull anger towards the universe that Kylo answered his door at 0700 sharp the next morning. Hux was, as expected, punctual to the dot.

“You look like shit,” were the first words out of Hux’s mouth. Narrowing his eyes, he stared at Kylo’s face, and Kylo fought not to twitch under that intent gaze, especially when he felt it lingering on his (undoubtedly extremely bad) eye-bags. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

“And a good morning to you too, Hux,” Kylo muttered. He turned his back on Hux and shuffled back into his room to his bed where Millicent was still sleeping happily. Kylo threw the sleeping cat a resentful glare. It was probably the sign of a new low in his life that he was actually feeling jealous of a cat.

Hux had followed Kylo into his bedroom. His gaze roved over the admittedly rather meagre contents of Kylo’s room. Jedi were taught not to place importance in material possessions, and this was one of their teachings that had actually stuck with Kylo. To call Kylo’s rooms austere would be akin to calling Hoth slightly chilly.

It suddenly hit Kylo that this was the first time Hux (or just about any other human being save himself) had been in his private chambers and he had to fight down a surge of unease. It was all very well keeping Hux’s cat in his rooms, but to have _Hux himself_ here, in Kylo’s private sanctum…

Kylo had clearly not thought this through enough and he found himself starting to regret it— something that was becoming a distressingly common trend in his life as of late.

Hux’s gaze had settled on the plinth upon which Kylo kept his grandfather’s helmet, now with an added glass casing around the helmet to prevent any little Millicent-related… incidents.

“Is that—Darth Vader’s helmet?” Hux said, and for once he actually sounded genuinely interested, instead of the lazy, bored drawl he usually favoured when speaking to Kylo.

“I thought that _Sith sorcery_ didn’t interest you,” Kylo muttered, a sullen bite to his tone.

“Yes, that’s true,” said Hux. He seemed slightly taken aback by Kylo’s chilly tone. Nonetheless, he recovered quickly. Walking up to the plinth to inspect the burnt mask more closely, Hux continued, “However, Lord Vader was an important part of the Imperial legacy. He worked closely with Grand Moff Tarkin during the construction of the first Death Star… and he was of course, heavily involved in the construction of the second. I admire him for that. The Death Stars were an incredible inspiration to me.”

Kylo snorted. “You and your obsession with technological terrors. When will you learn that true power doesn’t lie in mere machines, but in the Force?”

Hux smiled thinly, a darkly amused slant to his lips, before looking up at Kylo to meet his eyes. “Even you must admit that there’s beauty in such clean, efficient destruction, Ren.”

Kylo looked away quickly, repressing a shudder— though whether it was from disgust or desire, he couldn’t be sure.

_Hux is a monster,_ he reminded himself. _You may have seen his softer, more human side… but at the end of the day, he’ll just mock you for your feelings. Or worse, use them to manipulate you. Use you. He’ll chew you up and then spit you out. He’s just as much a tool of destruction as that beloved superweapon of his._

But Hux was already moving over to Millicent, having lost interest in the burnt remains of Darth Vader’s helmet, and now he was running his fingers through her fur gently, cooing over her like she was a little baby. Seeing Hux like this, it was hard to truly believe in the things Kylo had just thought to himself.

“What exactly have you been feeding my cat?” Hux said. He was eyeing Millicent’s furry little tummy with a sour look on his face. As he spoke, he gave it a little poke. It wobbled slightly.

“Salmon, milk and water, twice a day,” Kylo replied. “Sometimes I give her an extra piece of salmon for supper if I’m feeling particularly generous. You needn’t worry yourself, Hux, I’ve been taking great care of your cat. I even read an article on the Holonet about feline nutrition.”

Hux practically exploded.

“One Holonet article does not make you an expert on cats, Ren! Oh, for the love of— I cannot _believe_ this.”

Hux lectured Kylo for a full five minutes on the importance of regulating Millicent’s diet, accusing Kylo of ‘spoiling her’ and ‘making her grossly obese’. He proceeded to educate Kylo in excruciating detail on how obese cats were four and a half times more likely to develop diabetes mellitus, among many other terrible ailments—until Kylo was tempted to shove a piece of salmon into Hux’s mouth just to shut him up.

Hux had brought Millicent two tins of what he prissily informed Kylo was ‘proper cat food’, specially prepared to contain all nutrients essential in a feline’s diet. It looked like Bantha shit, but Millicent dutifully scarfed it down. One tin was supposed to be for her evening meal, but according to Hux, “given your apparent mission to kill my cat through over-feeding, it’s probably better for her to skip that.”

Kylo resolved to sneak Millicent more of the fish she liked when Hux wasn’t around, but maybe in smaller and less frequent portions this time. Hux was such a hardass. Surely it wouldn’t kill Millicent to have a little treat once in a while rather than that awful-looking Bantha shit Hux dared to call ‘cat food’.

“Have you really been letting her sleep in your old cloaks?” Hux was eyeing Kylo’s cloaks as though they were habouring some deadly disease. “You don’t need to do that, you know. Millie already has her own blanket, and it’s more than serviceable. She’s been sleeping with it since she was a kitten. I brought it along in case she was feeling homesick.”

Hux produced a small grey wool blanket out from inside his greatcoat and dangled it in front of Millicent as though he had brought her a great treasure. “Here, Millie. Look what I brought you. It’s your favourite blankie. Far better than a bunch of Ren’s dirty old scraps, wouldn’t you agree?”

Kylo resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “She loves those cloaks. I had to move them to the bed before she’d stop trying to sleep on the floor with them.”

Hux placed the blanket down on the bed and patted it invitingly. “Here, Millie.”

Kylo smirked. “She’s going to go back to those cloaks. Just wait and see. Admit it, Hux, your cat likes me better.”

“She likes _me_ better. I’m her owner. In any case, this isn’t a competition, Ren,” Hux said bitingly, but for all that he had claimed it wasn’t a competition, still he patted at the blanket, calling Millicent’s name insistently.

True to Kylo’s words, despite all of Hux’s cajoling, Millicent did in fact return to the nest of cloaks, upon which she curled up and fell asleep again.

Hux shot Millicent a look that was equal parts disbelieving and wounded. “Really, Millie? You little traitor,” he said, and though his tone was as dry and sardonic as ever, Kylo suspected that there was possibly some genuine hurt hidden behind it.

Kylo found himself in the strange, disturbing position of feeling like he ought to be gloating, but wanting to reassure Hux instead.

“I guess she’s just more used to my cloaks now,” he said, and on impulse, he added, “Maybe we could put her blanket together with the cloaks? It’ll probably make her happier. Best of both worlds, you know?”

Hux shot him a look like Kylo had just announced his intention to quit the First Order and run off to start his new career as an exotic dancer on Nar Shaddaa. One of Hux's thin red eyebrows was slowly but surely inching up towards his hairline in a silent but ever so expressive show of incredulous disbelief. Kylo almost disavowed his words, fearful of Hux’s mockery, but before the last shreds of Kylo’s courage could give out, Hux’s lips twitched into a small smile.

“Yes, I suppose she would enjoy that more,” the general agreed.

Still smiling faintly, he draped the soft woollen blanket over Millicent where she was snoozing in the nest of cloaks, and it felt as though there was a strange weight to that simple action— a concession, or perhaps an acknowledgment.

When Hux met Kylo’s gaze, smiling, and Kylo smiled back, Kylo could not help but think that there was something different in the air. He didn’t know exactly what it was he was seeing in Hux’s uncharacteristically soft gaze—but it felt too much like a beginning. An awakening. The promise of something new.

In Kylo’s chest was the familiar, terrible burn of hope. He was afraid that this time he wouldn’t be able to make it go away—and worst of all, that he didn't really want it to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I wonder if I should just change the summary for this fic to "a story about two assholes bonding over a cat"


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People who are familiar with Knights of the Old Republic may recognize the very oblique reference I made to Revan and Bastila's force bond in this chapter. (I love that game.)

Hux continued to visit Kylo’s rooms daily, bringing more of that dreadful ‘cat food’ along with him each time and an assortment of little toys for Millicent to play with. Once he even brought along one of those laser pointers he was so fond of waving around when giving his presentations during command meetings. Kylo had been bewildered at first until Hux showed him how to use the pointer to make Millicent chase a dot of light.

In return, Kylo showed Hux how he made Millicent jump around by taunting her with a scrap of cloth that he levitated with the Force.

“Rather a waste of your dark powers, isn’t it?” Hux commented dryly, as he watched Millicent leaping around after the cloth, “I thought you cultist types were supposed to be very respectful about that mystical ‘Force’ of yours. After seeing you choke a man without touching him, I must say it’s rather strange to see you using your powers for something as… frivolous… as playing with my cat.”

“Exercise is very important for the mental and physical well-being of cats,” Kylo said, before adding, authoritatively, “I read it on the Holonet.”

Hux snorted, muttering something not very complimentary under his breath about the quality of the information in Holonet cat-care articles, before throwing Kylo a sly, sidelong glance. “For all your claims not to care much about her, you certainly seem concerned about Millie’s well-being.”

“I just find your animal’s stupidity strangely charming,” Kylo muttered, and Hux smirked.

“Whatever you say, Ren,” he said airily, “You don’t fool me for a second.”

Kylo shot him a glare. In his opinion, he did an extremely admirable job of hiding the fact that he was secretly glorying in the sight of Hux’s smugly delighted smirk.

 

\---

 

Perhaps due to the fact that he was (kind of, sort of, maybe) harbouring a gigantic crush on the man, Kylo found himself looking forward to Hux’s visits to his chambers. He knew that Hux was here for Millicent, not him, but still, Kylo would take whatever he could get.

It turned out that Hux was surprisingly good company when he wasn’t insulting Kylo every few seconds. Kylo liked listening to Hux’s sardonic, biting observations about the many incompetents on the Finalizer crew that they both had to deal with, and he often found himself sharing a chuckle with the general over the foolish antics of some junior officer or other—Hux’s dry wit, now that it was turned on others who were not Kylo himself, was far more enjoyable.

One day, while reading a datapad and idly running his fingers through Millicent’s fur as she slept on his lap, Hux commented, offhandedly, “You know, you’re not so bad after all, Ren.” As he spoke, his gaze flickered over to Kylo’s for a second, a fleeting smirk passing across his lips. “For an emotionally-stunted man-child with less brains than a Bantha, you do have your redeeming moments. Rarely. But still.”

Kylo was stunned. He stared at Hux in dumbstruck silence. Despite Hux having compared his intelligence unfavourably to a Bantha, coming from the general, that backhanded compliment was practically glowing praise.

Hux’s eyes were back on his datapad. There was a small, sly smirk on his lips.

Kylo finally found his voice. “I suppose I could say the same for you, General. For such a tightly wound-up prick, you can be surprisingly tolerable at times.”

Hux lifted his eyes from his datapad, chuckling. Tone dry, he said, “Oh, by the stars. Kylo Ren is admitting that I’m _tolerable_? Will wonders never cease?”

Kylo snorted, narrowing his eyes at Hux, but he couldn’t help the amused twitch his lips gave. “You learn something new every day. Like how to gain enough patience to deal with giant assholes.”

Hux was smirking as he said, “In that, you and I are in complete agreement.”

 

\---

 

It was late, well past 2300 by the ship’s chronometer, and Hux was in Kylo’s rooms to visit Millicent as usual.

The general used to pop by Kylo’s rooms only in the mornings, but lately he had taken to dropping by after his evening shifts ended too, often unannounced—something that had greatly surprised Kylo, given Hux’s usual strict adherence to schedule and obsession with arranging things far in advance. Whenever Hux arrived, Kylo always pretended to only begrudgingly agree to allow him in for more ‘Millie time’, but inside he had been secretly delighted by the fact that Hux was choosing to spend more time in his company.

Now Hux was picking Millicent up, murmuring something silly and embarrassingly mawkish to her under his breath while Kylo not very subtly rolled his eyes and let out a snort. Ignoring Kylo’s snort of disdain, Hux settled himself on Kylo’s chair with lazy grace, placing Millicent on his lap as he pulled out a datapad to read. That chair had become the general’s favourite spot to sit in Kylo’s rooms, unsurprising given that the only other choices were Kylo’s bed and the floor.

Satisfied that the general was settled in, Kylo sat down on his meditation mat and closed his eyes, reaching out to the Force. This had become something of a routine during Hux’s nighttime visits—Kylo meditating quietly and Hux reading his reports as Millicent slept on his lap.

Clearing his mind of distractions, Kylo quickly sank into a light meditative trance, becoming more and more aware of the Force as it flowed through him and his surroundings. The Force connected all living things, and as Kylo’s connection to it increased, so did his awareness of two bright spots in his periphery.

Hux and Millicent.

Hux in particular glowed, ever so brightly—for all the darkness Kylo knew resided in Hux’s soul, the general shone like a beacon in the Force. Even though Kylo wasn’t deliberately trying to, he could sense the waves of peace and contentment that were coming off the other man.

Not for the first time, Kylo wondered why exactly the general’s mind was so open to him—all those accidental mental touches when he brushed against Hux’s skin, the way he could sometime sense Hux’s emotions without even trying…

And it had all started ever since Hux saved him.

Kylo found himself remembering long ago lessons in a dusty old classroom, deep in the heart of a temple with walls of stone— listening to his uncle’s gentle, softly-spoken words as he talked about bonds that could be formed through the Force, usually forming between master and padawan over a long period, but sometimes on rare occasions, especially during moments of near-death, forming instantaneously and even between two people who were almost entirely strangers, even _mortal enemies_...

He thought of himself, lying in a cot on a shuttle, unconscious. Hux resting his fingers lightly upon his cheek as the general gazed at him. The Force flowing through the two of them. A spark of emotion, hidden deep down inside but coming to the surface in the silence and peace of that small, private moment—and something inside Kylo’s sleeping mind latching onto it, a subconscious answer to an unspoken question. Could it be—?

Hux let out a small noise of surprise and Kylo opened his eyes, startled out of his meditative trance.

“This… this wasn’t here yesterday.”

Hux was fingering a black leather strap around Millicent’s neck. On it dangled a tiny silver bell. Closer inspection would reveal that it was shaped to resemble a miniature Death Star.

“Is this a collar, Ren? And a— oh, a bell.”

It appeared that Hux had discovered the new collar that Kylo had fashioned for Millicent over the course of the past few days. Kylo had decided to make it in a fit of remorse brought on by the memory of how he had carelessly flung Millicent’s old collar, obviously so lovingly crafted, out of an airlock.

The soft black leather of the collar had been cut from the lining of one of Kylo’s old boots. The bell had been created from a piece of metal that Kylo had melted down and then used the Force to mould into shape. It had taken an embarrassingly long time to make. Kylo was not used to such delicate work. Small, subtle applications of the Force were not his forte, as evident from his usual fondness for brute force displays. Carving that little ball of metal into something even remotely resembling a Death Star had been like using muscles that Kylo had not used in years—if not his entire _life_. Needless to say, it hadn’t been a pleasant experience, and by the end of it, Kylo had been nursing a splitting headache. It was only the thought of all his effort being wasted that had prevented him from hurling the finished product at the nearest wall in frustration.

It had all been worth it, though, if the look of surprised delight on Hux’s face was any indication. “This bell. It’s a miniature Death Star. Isn’t it?”

Lifting Millicent up to his face so that he could stare more closely at the bell, Hux said, voice soft, “Remarkable… the detail on this. It truly does look like the real thing. I should know, I studied the Death Star schematics daily for nearly a decade.”

Kylo was preening inside at Hux’s words, though of course he let none of it show. Instead he said in a deliberately casual tone, “Does it?”

“Yes,” said Hux. His eyes flicked up from the bell to meet Kylo’s gaze. “Did you make this yourself, Ren? For me?”

There was a soft smile on Hux’s face. He looked- he actually looked genuinely _happy_ , and Kylo was surprised by how much more radiant Hux’s features were when they were lit up in joy.

For a moment, Kylo considered telling Hux the truth. But his ego railed against it— _Don’t overplay your hand! Don’t let him know just how much you care_ —and instead Kylo said, “Do I look as though I have that much spare time on my hands, General? I ordered a droid to do it.”

“Oh,” said Hux, his smile dimming slightly. “Of course.”

Kylo almost took his words back, a strange ache in his chest at Hux’s obvious disappointment, but before he could say anything, Hux continued, “Still, I appreciate the thought, Ren.”

Kylo waved a hand at him dismissively. “Consider it my apology for tossing the previous one out of an airlock. That thing looked ridiculously expensive.”

“It was indeed, as you say, ‘ridiculously expensive’,” Hux said dryly. After a moment, he added in a gentler tone, “But yes… thank you. The Death Star bell was a nice touch.”

There was a small smile on Hux’s face as he played with the tiny bell, turning it here and there to admire it. He was obviously very pleased with it.

“It’s just a joke,” Kylo muttered, “A reminder of the foolishness of placing your faith in technological terrors. Every time you see it, I want you to remember just how easily destroyed these useless things are… Just like that stupid Starkiller weapon of yours,” he added snidely after a beat.

Despite Kylo’s dig at his beloved blown-up superweapon, Hux seemed entirely unaffected. He was still smiling. There was something annoyingly smug and knowing about it.

“Sure, Ren,” he said. “Thanks for that charming reminder. And just let me clarify something— so the shape of this bell has _absolutely nothing_ to do with that conversation when we talked about your grandfather and I told you that the Death Stars were an incredible inspiration to me. Is that right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hux,” Kylo said sulkily, before adding, “Just keep quiet and leave me alone. Can’t you see that I’m trying to meditate?”

Hux let out a wryly amused chuckle. He was still smirking when he returned his attention to his datapad.

Kylo closed his eyes again and reached out to the Force. Once in a while he would hear a small tinkle of metal. Kylo quickly opened his eyes, just a tiny slit, to sneak a surreptitious glimpse.

Hux was playing with the tiny Death Star bell, and there was a small, private smile on his face. Assured that Hux’s attention was on the bell and not on him, Kylo let a satisfied smile ghost across his face, just for a second, before slipping back into his trance.

In the Force, Hux glowed with happiness, and to Kylo, it seemed almost as though he shone brighter than all the stars in the galaxy combined.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo is such a ridiculous romantic, oh gosh. When I was writing that last line, I was suddenly reminded of [a post on tumblr that I saw before](http://turtleduckdate.tumblr.com/post/133631640074/that-phrase-like-he-looked-at-her-like-she-was).
> 
> I bet your eyes are feeling real sore now, Kylo.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter, and finally, the fic earns itself its M-rating... (Hopefully I rated high enough, I'm always pretty iffy about these things. If anyone thinks I should up the rating, just tell me.)
> 
> Apologies for the long wait, writing smut is definitely not my forte! The rest of this chapter practically wrote itself, but that last part... oh gosh. Let's just say I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time on it.
> 
> BTW, AO3 has been stuffing up and I was unable to reply to comments left by non-signed-in users the last time I tried. I'll try again sometime soon, but I have no idea if the issue has been fixed yet...

Outside the privacy of Kylo’s rooms, Kylo did his best to pretend that absolutely nothing had changed between him and Hux. When he and Hux passed each other in corridors, Kylo resolutely ignored him. Though they were no longer exchanging insults with practically every breath, they barely spoke a word to each other during meetings beyond what was absolutely necessary.

If Kylo spent the shifts he shared with Hux on the Finalizer’s bridge admiring the sight of Hux standing ramrod-straight at his command station and barking out orders with brusque efficiency, everything was hidden by his mask.

However, it seemed that Hux’s daily visits to Kylo’s rooms had not gone unnoticed. Kylo soon became aware of the _looks_ that he and Hux were acquiring whenever they were anywhere within five feet of each other. Even something as simple as them walking down the bridge together would attract sly, knowing glances and a few none too subtle sniggers.

Normally Kylo would be unbothered by the petty gossip of the lower ranks— as Snoke’s apprentice and the leader of the Knights of Ren, all of these little people were completely beneath his notice. What the common rabble thought of him made not an iota of difference to Kylo. But for some reason, the knowing glances and snide sniggers vexed Kylo greatly. Perhaps, Kylo admitted to himself, it was something of a sensitive spot—after all Kylo had to face up to the dismal reality daily that he and Hux were _definitely not sleeping together_ , even though Kylo greatly wished that they were.

One day Kylo simply could not take it any longer. After hearing one too many sniggers as he and Hux strode down the corridor together, Kylo’s patience finally snapped. He grabbed Hux by the arm and dragged the general into an empty conference room before Hux could even start putting up a protest. The moment they were inside and the doors had closed behind them, Kylo reached up with one hand to fumble with the catch of his helmet. There was a hiss of air as the locking mechanisms disengaged, then Kylo’s mask was off and he shook his hair away from where it had fallen messily across his face.

Hux had already wrenched his arm free of Kylo’s grip. There was a scowl on his face. In a tone of greatly aggrieved exasperation, he said, “What is the meaning of this, Ren? Just because we’re actually getting along now doesn’t mean you can just start dragging me around willy-nilly! Has it somehow escaped your notice that we both have to be on the bridge in fifteen minutes? I know that the Finalizer can run itself very well without your presence- perhaps even better, actually—but without _me,_ Force knows what those incompetents that make up the bridge crew would be getting up to. Knowing them, they’ll probably find some way to crash this ship into the nearest asteroid field—”

Kylo sighed heavily. “Hux…”

Hux stared at Kylo, arms crossed and a pinched look on his face. Impatience was written clearly across his every feature. “Yes?” he said testily.

“Have you—” Kylo paused. “Have you noticed it? …The way people… you know. Look at us.”

He looked expectantly at Hux, hoping the general would catch his drift, but Hux just scowled back at him.

“ _Fascinating_ ,” Hux said. His tone was drier than Tatooine. “I had no idea that people were _looking at us_. I don’t know what I’d do without all your keen observations to light up my life.” He made a show of looking pointedly at the chronometer on the wall before returning his gaze to stare fixedly at Kylo. “I trust you will be getting to your point soon, Ren.”

Was Hux really going to make him say it out loud? Kylo felt himself beginning to redden. He could practically feel sweat beading on his temple. Kriff! Why had he taken his mask off? He was half-tempted to shove the thing back on right now, but that would make things even more awkward than they already were.

Hux was still staring pointedly at him. There was a rhythmic clacking noise as the general started to tap the tip of his boot against the metal of the floor.

“Surely you’ve noticed the way people have been _staring_?” Kylo said helplessly.

Hux rolled his eyes. “Ren, people stare at you all the time. Can you really blame them? A six foot two giant in black robes and a mask, looming about like some _oversized scarecrow_. You’ve been in a position of command for some time now— surely you’ve already gotten used to a little scrutiny from your subordinates—”

Was Hux really that dense? Or was he just that much of a sadist? Probably the latter. It was Hux, after all.

“Oh, stars!” Kylo burst out, “You’re really going to make me spell it out for you, aren’t you? Everyone thinks we’re _sleeping together_! I suppose it’s the most logical conclusion—what with you dropping by my quarters daily for weeks!”

Kylo glared at Hux, chest heaving and cheeks burning. He felt like he was about to melt into a puddle of shame.

Hux, however, seemed entirely unaffected. He raised one nonchalant eyebrow at Kylo.

“So?” he said, in his usual lazy drawl.

“ _So_?” Kylo felt as though he was about to explode from sheer incredulous exasperation. “What in the name of the Force? Does this not bother you at all, Hux? People think we’re _sleeping together_!”

A thought occurred to Kylo. “You don’t seem very surprised about this,” he said to Hux accusingly. “Did you know all along that this was going to happen when you asked me to keep Millie in my rooms?”

Hux’s voice was bored as he said, “Of course I knew, Ren. It’s the most logical assumption for people to make. I was counting on it, in fact.” He flicked an imaginary piece of lint off his greatcoat. “It’s a good cover. Nobody would think I’m going to your rooms because I’m visiting my not-as-dead-as-she-seems cat, not when they think we’re spending the entire time hate-fucking each other’s brains out.” Hux was saying all of this so clinically, so overtly, with such incredible nonchalance—that Kylo could not help but let out an incoherent squawk of dismay as he goggled at Hux in shock.

Hux continued on blithely, smiling darkly, “Leave people to make their own assumptions and they’ll come up with their own lies for you. And with such sordid, juicy details to occupy their little minds— who would bother to think about whether it’s the actual truth?”

Kylo finally found his voice. “So you… you planned this. All along.”

“I wouldn’t say I _planned_ it,” Hux said, eyes flicking to Kylo’s briefly, “I simply… anticipated things. And then I let nature take its course. Come now, Ren. Surely this doesn’t come as a big surprise to you. What else did you think people would assume when they saw me visiting your private quarters daily? That we were singing campfire songs and knitting friendship bracelets?”

Kylo glared at Hux. The general had a way of making him feel like a real dunce. Kylo didn’t know whether he should be impressed that Hux was being so logical about this, or affronted that Hux clearly hadn’t seen fit to inform him about this aspect of his plans.

“Well, maybe you should have _asked_ me first,” he muttered sullenly, “Whether I was comfortable with people making all these assumptions about me. About us.”

Hux heaved an exasperated sigh. “I thought it was fairly obvious already, Ren. In any case, why does it matter? You told me before you don’t care what people think about you. Besides, you have nothing to lose from these rumours. In fact, you stand to gain. If people think you’re sleeping with me, it can only boost your reputation. It’ll be your newest triumph over your ruined foe. To the victor go the spoils. I don’t see why you’re so worked up about this—”

“You should have warned me at least,” Kylo insisted, voice tight. “It isn’t right. People—people talking about us like that. When it’s not true. It… troubles me.”

Hux’s tone was acerbic as he said, “Why does this _‘trouble’_ you so much? You certainly haven’t been shy about lying before—” Hux pitched his voice low, in what even Kylo had to admit was a passable imitation of his own voice, “—‘Oops, I flushed your cat out of an airlock, Hux’—does that ring a bell?”

“Will you never let me live that down?” Kylo muttered, but Hux ignored him.

“Does it pain you so much? That people think we’re together?” Hux was scowling. The tight, pinched look on his face suddenly reminded Kylo of another moment. The moment when Kylo had asked Hux, voice strangled, why Hux would give him his number and Hux had seemed to take offence. “Is the thought just that revolting to you?”

“No! It’s not that! Stars, I just—” Kylo dropped his gaze to the floor, suddenly unable to look at Hux. Quietly, he said, “I don’t want them thinking we’re together when we’re not. It makes me—uncomfortable.”

Hux let out a snort of unmistakable disgust. Kylo could hear the sneer in his voice as he said, “Well, it’s very likely that you won’t be _burdened_ with this discomfort for much longer, if that’s any consolation to you.”

Kylo looked up at that, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Voice cold and flat, his face impassive, Hux said, “I’ve been looking into the possibility of Millie being adopted by a suitable family planetside.”

Stricken, Kylo stared at Hux with his mouth open. “ _What?_ ” he said. “Have you gone _nuts_?”

The glare Hux shot Kylo was full of ice. “I assure you that I am completely sane and in full possession of my mental faculties, Ren,” he bit out curtly. “Something I might not be able to say for _you._ ”

However, after a beat, his expression began to soften. There was less bite to his tone as he said, “Ever since I found out that Millie was still alive, I’ve been considering it. Sending her away. Finding a nice family somewhere who can take her in. A good home on an actual planet.”

A distant look came into Hux’s eyes, and there was a wistful gentleness to his tone as he said, “Somewhere that’s not just a tiny room in a cold, metal ship. Somewhere with grass, a sky and— and sunlight… not just the light from stars in the cold vacuum of space. Millie’s a good cat. She deserves something better than this life, here with me.”

Kylo stared at Hux in horrified silence. Surely Hux couldn’t really be thinking of sending Millicent away? Kylo knew how just much the general loved her. How could he even bear the thought of being parted from her—especially after being so recently reunited? However, from the look on his face, it seemed that Hux was deadly serious.

Hux’s voice was quiet as he said, “All that time when I thought she was dead, all I could think was—this wouldn’t have happened to her if not for me. It’s because of _me_ that Millie’s dead. Because of who I am, because of what I do.”

“Hux, that’s not true—” Kylo began, but Hux cut him off brusquely, his eyes flashing with some dark emotion.

“Do you think this is going to end well for me? Or for you?”

Mouth dry with dread, Kylo said, “What do you mean?”

“At the end of the day, do you think people like us are going to get a happy ending? Surely even you can’t be that naïve, Ren.” Hux let out a bark of bitter laughter. “When I signed up for this, when I pledged myself to this cause, I knew that there would be no happy endings in store for me. Either I succeed and rule over a galaxy that hates and fears my name—or I fail and die in ignominy, billions cheering my death. Either way, whatever goes down, it won’t be pretty. I’ve already accepted that. But Millie is innocent. She doesn’t deserve to be a casualty of my cause. She deserves more than to be just—a bargaining chip… or collateral damage.”

Kylo wanted to protest, to point out just how well Hux took care of Millie, and how much he obviously loved her—how could he say that he didn’t deserve to keep her? Hux would miss Millie so dearly, and so would Kylo. Kylo was tempted to tell Hux he’d adopt Millicent himself if Hux was giving her up. However, deep inside him, he knew what Hux was saying.

Monsters like them didn’t deserve good things.

Hux was sending Millicent away because he loved her and he wanted her to be safe and happy. It was an act of pure selflessness that Kylo would never before have believed Hux capable of. But now that he had come to know Hux better, he realized that there were so many things about the other man he had never known—so many facets to his personality beyond the mask of cold cruelty he presented to the world.

Kylo swallowed before saying, voice slightly hoarse, “When will you be sending her away?”

“I’m still searching for a suitable family. They’ll be vetted to the highest standards, of course, so that will take time. I will accept only the very best for Millie. But I estimate that my sources will come back to me with a list of potential candidates within the next month or so.”

Kylo nodded, trying to ignore the bitter ache in his chest at the thought of Millicent being gone. “Right,” he said.

“Don’t look so miserable, Ren,” Hux said. There was an uncharacteristic note of gentleness in his voice as he said, “You’ll still have her around for the next few weeks at least. And it’s not as though it’s goodbye forever. You can always visit. I’ll give you the address.”

“I don’t care about your stupid cat,” Kylo said, before adding, “ _You’re_ the one who cried buckets over her in front of an airlock. Not _me_.” But he knew he was fooling no one.

Hux huffed softly in laughter. “If you say so, Ren.”

Kylo darted a quick look at Hux’s face, and at the sight of the small, sad smile on Hux’s lips, something in his chest gave a twinge. Before he knew it he found himself saying, “Why don’t you come stay with me? I mean, everyone already thinks we’re sleeping together, so what the hell—you could move into my rooms. It’ll give you more time to spend with Millicent before she has to go.”

Hux looked at him in surprise. “Ren. You realize that will only stir the rumour mill into _greater_ heights of frenzy, don’t you? Anyway-” some of his previous harshness slipped back into his tone, “-doesn’t this _trouble_ you? Or make you _uncomfortable?_ I find it hard to believe you’d willingly share a living space with me. Less than a month ago, we could barely stand in the same room without trying to murder each other.”

“Well. We’re not enemies anymore. I, uh… I don’t mind your company so much nowadays. Murder’s definitely no longer on the agenda.”

Hux’s lips twitched upwards. “Is this your socially maladroit way of saying that we’re friends, Ren?”

“No!” Kylo said automatically, bristling, before finally conceding, “…Maybe?”

Hux let out the first genuine laugh Kylo had heard from him since dragging him into this conference room. “Alright, Ren. I’ll consider it. Now can we please get moving? We’re nearly twenty minutes late for our shift.” Dryly, he said, face perfectly deadpan, “I’m sure everyone will think we’ve been in here desecrating the conference table with our sexual exploits.”

Kylo tried not to redden, _or_ entertain the thought of how lovely it would be if he could just back Hux against the conference table right now and turn those rumours into one-hundred-percent confirmed reality. He must have spent a little too long staring vacantly at Hux, because Hux waved a hand irritably at him and said, “Shall we start walking then, Ren?”

“Right... _Right!_ ” Kylo said, before following Hux out of the room, feeling distinctly chagrined. If Hux agreed to his plan, the next few weeks were going to be pure torture.

 

\---

 

Kylo opened the bottle of Gentle Meadows Aroma Therapy and held it to his nose as he took a deep, long breath. He needed it. The stress was beginning to get to him and Kylo didn’t want to slice up his own refresher with his lightsaber.

“For the last time, Hux, why do you need so many kriffing hair products? They’re cluttering up my side of the countertop! I told you to stop moving them there.”

Hux’s eyes were narrowed in a glare. “Just because _your_ idea of hair care is spit, mud and the blood of your enemies—doesn’t mean that rest of us should adhere to your particular fashion ideals of _barbarian chic—”_

Kylo let out a snort, rolling his eyes. Hux continued on, relentless, “I refuse to believe that you aren’t hiding some kind of conditioner around here at least. No one has such perfect hair without a minimum amount of care! Star’s sake, you don’t even get helmet hair!”

Kylo let out a contemptuous snort. “My hair is just naturally like this,” he declared loftily. Snidely, he added, “Maybe it’s the blood of my enemies. People tell me it adds extra bounce and shine.”

Hux snorted in surprised laughter before hastily schooling his expression into an extremely disgruntled look of incredulous exasperation. “I can’t even believe you, Ren.” After a beat, he added, “Anyway, since you aren’t using the space to store your own hair products, surely you can spare some for mine.”

“I don’t like clutter,” Kylo muttered sulkily. “Why can’t you just put them them in the cabinet like everyone else does?”

“In the mornings, I prefer to have everything out and ready to maximize efficiency.”

Kylo rolled his eyes again. “ _Efficiency_ ,” he muttered under his breath, making a face.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you do that, Ren,” Hux said, scowling, “Anyway, you’re one to talk. I know you’ve been stealing my lavender-scented shower gel.”

“I just occasionally… borrow… some,” Kylo said, “You have so many bottles of it, you can afford to spare some.”

“Just like you can afford to spare some of your countertop space? How about this then? Shower gel for countertop space. I’ll forgive you for stealing my Gentle Meadows Aroma Therapy if you stop nagging me about my hair products.”

Kylo snorted. “Oh, fine. Whatever. I’m tired of lecturing you about it anyway.”

Dryly, Hux said, “Now you know how I feel whenever someone comes to me with the repair bill for your latest stunt with your lightsaber.”

Kylo made a rude gesture at Hux, but Hux just laughed at him, smirking. Kylo manfully resisted the urge to shove Hux against the refresher wall and kiss the general silly until the man’s lips were red and swollen and he couldn’t string two words together.

_Control_ , he told himself. _Control._

Skywalker should be proud of him now. He always did say that Kylo had a lack of control.

 

\---

 

However, Kylo’s control was sorely tested less than a day later when the refresher door whooshed open and he was presented with the sight of Hux, fresh from his shower.

One of the perks of being housed in quarters designated for the highest ranking members of the First Order was that the freshers had showers with actual _water_ , instead of the usual sonic showers—a rare luxury on a starship like the Finalizer. Hux’s hair was dripping wet when he stepped out of the fresher and he was clad in nothing but a white towel around his waist. Kylo gulped at the sight of Hux’s bare chest, the pale flesh lightly muscled and gleaming with the remnants of water from his shower. Kylo could see the stretch of those muscles as Hux shifted—

Oh, kriff. Kylo hastily pulled his gaze away from Hux’s body and instead focused on glaring daggers at the man’s face.

“Will you put some clothes on, Hux?” he barked, voice curt. “What are you doing, wandering around half-naked?”

Hux’s brows furrowed in annoyance. “I never took you for a prude, Ren,” he said cuttingly, “You’d think you had never seen another man’s naked torso before. What are you? A _princess_? I’m sorry to subject your delicate sensibilities to the beastly horror of my bare chest.” After a beat, he added, waspishly, “Anyway, I wouldn’t be doing this if I could find my bathrobe! What did you do to it?”

“Why do you always turn around and accuse _me_ whenever something goes wrong?” Kylo said. “I didn’t do anything to your stupid robe!”

“Because, nine times out of ten, the culprit is indeed you. Please explain to me, then, where my bathrobe is. Ever since we last did our laundry, it’s been gone—”

Something occurred to Kylo. “Is this robe dark grey?”

“Yes.”

“Made of cotton?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a moment.”

Kylo went over to the closet and rummaged around in his side of it for a moment before pulling out a dark grey bathrobe.

“I knew it,” Hux said. He marched forward and snatched the robe from Kylo’s hands with an accusing glare. “You were indeed the culprit. You have a nasty habit of stealing my things, Ren.”

“It was an accident!” Kylo said sulkily. It wasn’t his fault. What did Hux expect? When two people with extremely similar clothing (the only variations in colour being where a particular shade fell along the scale of dark grey to pitch black) shared a closet, accidents were bound to happen.

Hux had poked his head into the closet, and he was rooting through Kylo’s clothing suspiciously, as if he expected Kylo to be hiding whole bushels of his things in there like Kylo was some kind of black-obsessed magpie.

“Stop pawing through my stuff!”

Scowling, Hux straightened up and Kylo slammed the closet doors closed with far more force than was necessary.

“Fine,” Hux said, “I’ll give the benefit of the doubt this time. But don’t let me catch you stealing anymore of my things again.”

After flashing Kylo one last stern glare, Hux turned to re-enter the fresher. There was a moment of slow, dreadful realization as Kylo’s gaze fell upon where a corner of Hux’s towel was caught in between the closet doors.

Kylo raised one hand, trying to reach out with the Force to keep Hux’s towel in place, but it was too late.

He could only stare in horror as the white cloth slipped down, revealing first the small of Hux’s back, dotted lightly with a scattering of freckles, then Hux’s ass, which was strangely firm-looking given that the general spent most of his time sitting on it instead of doing any sort of physical activity. It was a nice-looking ass, Kylo found himself thinking idly, a very nice-looking—

Oh, kriff. Kylo turned his back on Hux. “For the love of the Force, Hux!” he said, and it came out rather squeakier than Kylo would have preferred. “Will you be more careful? I did _not_ need to see your pasty white ass. I’m going to be having _nightmares_ —”

Hux let out an indignant squawk of anger. Before Kylo knew it, Hux’s hand was on his shoulder and Kylo was being tugged around to face the shorter man. Hux was wearing his bathrobe now, and there was a look of utter fury on his face.

“You know what? This is it! I’m sick and tired of edging around the Bantha in the room and pretending that I don’t realize what’s going on—”

“Wha—” Kylo began to say, but Hux continued on as though Kylo hadn’t even spoken at all.

“I know you’re repulsed by the very thought of me being attracted to you, Ren. You don’t need to try to hide it anymore. I saw the look on your face when I wanted to give you my number. And you’re-” Hux formed his fingers into air quotes, “-‘ _uncomfortable’_ with the thought that people think that we’re sleeping together. Now you can’t even _look_ at me when I’m half-dressed. Are you afraid that it’ll give me _ideas_?” Hux let out a bitter bark of laughter. His tone was utterly venomous as he hissed, “Rest assured, Ren. Your virtue is safe from me.”

“I’m not—I don’t—” was all Kylo managed to get out before Hux cut him off, ploughing on relentlessly and not letting Kylo get a word in edgewise, “You don’t need to pity me, you know. Do you think that I don’t know what this is? Do you think that I don’t know what you’re thinking?” Hux’s grey-green eyes flashed in anger. His tone was cruel as he said, “Oh, poor, lonely General Hux—unloved by everyone, even his own _father_ — it’s so horribly sad. And he actually _likes_ me. It’s _revolting_. Still I can’t help but feel sorry for the pitiful creature. Better show him some kindness—maybe it’ll make me feel better about all the horrible things I’ve done—maybe even make up for how sorry I feel about being responsible for the death of my dearly departed father—”

Rage unfurled like a red haze over Kylo’s vision. “Don’t you dare bring Han Solo into this!”

Hux continued, tone cruelly mocking, “—Maybe he’ll even be so pathetically grateful to me that he’ll be my _friend_. After all, I’ve got none of those myself, so I might as well settle for my worst enemy. It’s the best I can do. Beggars can’t be choosers—”

Kylo was trembling with rage. For the first time in a long while, he felt like he could truly hurt Hux again. He almost reached for the Force, to wrap it around Hux’s neck and _squeeze_ — but then he caught the fleeting wisps of Hux’s thoughts, misery and pain clear in every word: _He doesn’t want me. Why would he? He hates the very sight of me, I can’t stand it anymore. I thought I’d just do my best and hold on, content myself with whatever scraps of affection he’d throw me. He was so nice to me, like nobody ever was before, but now I wish he would just leave me alone. It hurts too much—_

It was then that Kylo realized the truth. Hux was angry and hurt, and he was lashing out the only way he knew how—with cruel words and mockery. He was trying to drive Kylo away, because he couldn’t bear to be hurt anymore.

“I was a fool to think that we could be anything but enemies,” Hux was saying, but Kylo didn’t let him continue. He grabbed a fistful of Hux’s bathrobe and tugged him forward sharply. Kylo leaned in, barely just registering Hux’s gasp of shock, and then their mouths were crashing together.

The kiss was messy and awkward and wet, their teeth knocking together painfully with a loud clack at the first point of contact. However, Hux did not pull away. Instead, Kylo felt Hux’s fingers come to rest upon the nape of his neck, tugging Kylo down towards him so that their mouths would fit together better.

It felt so good after that, Hux’s lips so warm as they moulded against his. Kylo was well aware that he was no expert at kissing. Awkward and gawky, not to mention painfully shy, the most experience he had had was a few fumbles in the dark in the Jedi Temple with his fellow initiates. However, Hux more than made up for whatever Kylo lacked in practical experience.

Hux kissed with easy, fierce confidence; he was as commanding and intense in his kissing as he was in everything else. He kissed like this was a battle, one that he was determined to win— nipping at Kylo’s lips whenever the kiss got too gentle for him, digging his nails into the nape of Kylo’s neck. Kylo responded in turn, kissing back with just as much fervour, giving Hux as good as he got. This was a different type of push and pull from their normal games of verbal sparring, but the thrill— the high of it was very much the same.

“You know what the problem with you is, Hux?” Kylo whispered softly against the shell of Hux’s ear as the other man sucked wetly at the skin of his throat. “You think the worst of everyone. When I—” Kylo shuddered, gasping a little when Hux nipped playfully at his skin. “When I looked at you—it wasn’t revulsion that made me turn my gaze away. It was fear that you’d see my desire.”

Hux froze, and Kylo had a split second of worry that somehow he had said the wrong thing and ruined everything, then Hux was smiling, sharp and dangerous.

“Careful, Ren,” he said, voice silky, “When you say things like that, you should be aware that there will be… _consequences_.”

Kylo smiled back, teeth bared. “Will there?” he said daringly, and then Hux was all over him, mouth and hands everywhere.

Kylo wasn’t sure who it was who got whose hands on whose clothes first, but before he knew it, Hux’s bathrobe was on the floor, together with all the scattered layers of Kylo’s clothing.

They were kissing each other furiously, hungrily, barely even breaking for air, but during one of the rare lulls, Kylo managed to gasp out, “Bed,” and the two of them stumbled to the nearest one—it was unclear whether it was Kylo’s or Hux’s, but Kylo didn’t really care. A bed was a bed, after all.

Kylo shoved Hux onto the bed, the two of them all but collapsing onto the mattress, making it bounce violently.

There was a loud, angry yowl accompanied by a small tinkle of metal.

Millicent, ears nearly flat against her skull, was staring at them accusingly from the foot of the bed where she was crouched low in a frightened huddle, her blue eyes wide and betrayed. It seemed that the bed they had made it to was Hux’s.

“Sorry. Sorry, Millie,” Hux said, then he untangled himself from Kylo’s arms, drawing a soft whine of protest from Kylo’s throat. Kylo watched unhappily as Hux, still murmuring soft apologies to the cat, picked Millicent up and locked her in the refresher.

“What did you do that for?” Kylo said when Hux returned. “It seems a little cruel. Locking her in there.”

Hux gave him an unimpressed look. “Would you rather she watch?” he said dryly, before adding, lips twitching, “I can bring her back if you’d like.”

“On second thought, let’s leave her in there.”

“That’s what I thought,” Hux said with a smirk—and then Kylo was kissing it off him, letting his hands roam all over Hux’s body as the other man shuddered under his ministrations, letting out loud moans that sounded ever so deliciously wanton. Kylo loved the way Hux was responding to him, so fully, with abandon, arching into Kylo’s touch and whining whenever Kylo’s hands left him for too long. Kylo paused, suddenly struck with the realization that just like him, this must be the first time in a very long while that someone had touched Hux in such an intimate way—

Hux took advantage of Kylo’s distraction to flip them over and Kylo found himself lying on his back, Hux straddling his thighs. Then all coherent thoughts were wiped from his mind as Hux went down on him.

The wet, hot tightness of Hux’s red, kiss-swollen lips had Kylo gasping and clutching at Hux’s hair, keening loudly. In no time at all, Kylo was at the edge, pleasure cresting in him. He could feel the pressure building at the base of his spine. He tried to tug Hux off him, but no amount of pulling at the other man’s red hair would make him budge. Instead, Hux met Kylo’s gaze as he slowly, deliberately slid his mouth down Kylo’s length, until his lips were right on the head, before taking Kylo in again up to the base in one smooth, sharp motion—and then, Kylo was completely undone.

Lost in pleasure, Kylo was only vaguely aware of the loud, incoherent yell he let out as he shuddered his way through his release. Hux did not pull off, instead his throat worked as he swallowed. Watching Hux like that, lips red and swollen, cheeks high with colour and pupils blown, a trickle of white leaking from the corner of his mouth— and knowing that he, Kylo Ren, was responsible of just how debauched the usually so controlled general looked right now—there was something incredibly erotic about it, and Kylo found himself mesmerized by the sight.

He reached one finger out towards Hux’s chin, swiping at the sticky evidence of his release upon the other man’s skin until it was all gone. At that, Hux finally pulled off. More of Kylo’s seed leaked from his mouth, and as Kylo watched, Hux’s tongue darted out and the general very deliberately met Kylo’s eyes as he licked it away.

Kylo was vaguely aware of the obscene gasp he let out, but he was more concerned about the way that Hux’s hand had dropped down to his belly. The other man’s fingers were wrapped around his erection, and the general let out harsh, guttural grunts as he moved his fist up and down in rough, sharp jerks.

Kylo felt himself overcome with a wave of _want_. He thought about returning the favour, putting his own mouth on Hux. However, the moment Kylo’s fingers neared Hux’s erection, Hux roughly batted his hand away.

“Hux, let me—” Kylo said, reaching out again, only to have Hux snarl at him, “Leave it, Ren.”

“But—” Kylo said. What Hux had done for him had been so mind-blowingly good, and Kylo felt that he should probably at least make an attempt to reciprocate. “You… I… I mean… I want to…”

Hux was panting heavily now, chest heaving and eyes glazed with pleasure. “Articulate… as always… Ren,” he managed to gasp out. “Just… shut up. Leave my cock alone. You want to help? Lie back and look pretty.”

Kylo felt that he ought to be offended by that. Lie back and look pretty? Hux might as well find himself a blow-up doll, if that was how he was going to be. However, he was still feeling very charitable towards Hux (the fantastic blow job probably helped a lot), and so Kylo complied, lying back silently and just admiring the sight of Hux working himself towards release.

Hux’s breaths began to hitch, his pace quickening, and Kylo knew that he would be coming any moment now. Despite Hux’s obvious reluctance for Kylo to help him in any way, Kylo found himself overcome by the urge to be contrary. Before Hux could stop him, Kylo had surged up, grabbing Hux into a crushing kiss, and that was all that was needed to send Hux over the edge.

Hux came with a yell that he quickly cut off with a sharp hiss. He slumped against Kylo bonelessly, shuddering. Kylo could feel the wetness on his stomach from where Hux’s release had been smeared onto his skin. After a few moments, Hux recovered enough to shove Kylo away from him.

Glaring, he said, “Didn’t I tell you not to touch me? Can’t you even obey a simple command, Ren?”

Kylo grinned at him, completely unrepentant. “You said not to touch your cock. I didn’t touch your cock. Besides, you seemed to like it well enough.”

Hux looked away, huffing in frustration. Kylo reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder, and Hux jerked slightly, his gaze turning back upon Kylo.

“That was amazing, Hux,” Kylo said, “I had no idea you were so good at this.” He allowed a gentle smile to slip onto his lips. “Maybe next time you could let me return the favour? I feel bad for letting you do all the work—”

“Spare me your awkward attempts at pillow talk, Ren. Gentleness doesn’t become you,” Hux said harshly, pulling away from Kylo’s touch. Kylo was struck by a ominous sense of doom. He could only watch with helpless dread as Hux’s grey-green eyes shuttered, his face becoming a cold, blank mask again.

“This was a mistake.”

“Hux-” Kylo said, heart sinking. Was this because he had disobeyed Hux? Did this have something to do with Hux not wanting Kylo to touch him? Kylo had thought that Hux wanted him. Hux had said he was attracted to Kylo… Why was he acting like this?

What had Kylo done wrong?

Hux had left the bed. He took his uniform from the closet, putting each piece on with brusque, almost mechanical efficiency. He stepped into his boots before shrugging on his coat in one sharp motion.

Face impassive and voice void of emotion, Hux met Kylo’s gaze. When he spoke, his voice was filled with a sickening sort of cold finality, “I’ll send a droid for my things. I trust you will take good care of Millicent until she can be relocated.”

Kylo felt as though he had been stabbed in the chest. “Wait, Hux! No—”

But Hux was already out of the room, the doors whooshing closed behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emotional intimacy: Hi Hux :) :) :)
> 
> Hux: -RUNS AWAY SCREAMING-
> 
> (Hux has issues.)
> 
>  
> 
> (Also, the closets ship it ;D)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait, dear readers. This chapter was a total struggle to write, for reasons that will probably become clear as you read on. (If you think it's hard to read, just think about how hard it was for me to write.)
> 
> A HUGE thank you to the kind souls who stepped up to the plate when I put out a call on tumblr for a beta: dracadancer, femalespock, natashaRS and sinningsquire. The fact that this chapter is even posted at all owes entirely to their efforts, so believe me when I say that they deserve all the accolades and gratitude in the world <3

After Hux left, Kylo battled the urge to chase after the general and scream a few choice Huttese slurs at him about his parentage and his sexual anatomy, before finally despair and good sense won out over anger and he collapsed back onto the bed in a slump of crushing misery.

They had barely made it two minutes past orgasm, much less started a proper relationship, and Hux had basically _dumped him._ Hux didn’t even have the decency to let Kylo enjoy it a little! He could at least have waited until the post-coital high had faded before bursting Kylo’s bubble. So much for the afterglow. What had Kylo done to deserve this? He hadn’t done anything more than kiss Hux- and yes, so maybe he did say a few things to Hux that were actually straightforwardly _nice_ for a change—but in response Hux had done the exact opposite of what most people would do when being treated nicely. In other words, he reacted like Kylo had suddenly sprouted fangs and transformed into a ravenous Nexu.

How ridiculous was that? One second Hux was heartbroken about Kylo not wanting him, the next second he was running away because Kylo showed signs of actually wanting him. Kylo was sure that even all the mind-reading abilities in the world would not help to shed any illumination when it came to understanding the Mynock’s den that was Hux’s mind. Kylo kind of longed for the days back when he had thought that Hux was the closest thing that any human being could get to being an emotionless droid, sans the mechanical parts.

Was Hux that afraid of losing control? Of the possibility of change? Was it that the moment something went even the slightest bit differently in his ridiculously, obsessively ordered little world, he went into a tailspin and his logic circuits fried? Was it a trust thing? Did Hux run off because he thought Kylo was trying to use his feelings to manipulate him? Or was he just that afraid of having an actual Real Emotion™ for once in that cold, dead thing that could only nominally be called his heart? Kylo knew that Hux was an overly paranoid, cynical bastard who thought everyone was out to get him, but this… this was just _nuts_. Even for him. Not that Kylo was a paragon of emotional stability himself, but next to Hux, he practically looked well-adjusted. And Hux dared to call Kylo an emotionally stunted man-child? Pot, meet kettle!

Kylo had a vague notion that perhaps he should find Hux and start brandishing his lightsaber at him until the man gave him some proper answers, but that would take too much effort and Kylo just wanted to lie on this bed forever and wallow in self-pity.

It was after an embarrassingly long time of doing just that that Kylo realized something was off. The room was too quiet and nothing was trying to knead his stomach.

Oh kriff. Millicent was still shut in the refresher. She had been in there for quite a while, and odds were that she was not best pleased right now.

With a tortured groan, Kylo pushed himself off the bed and shuffled over to the refresher. After a few taps to the control panel, the door whooshed open. Millicent was glaring at him from under the sink, her pupils barely more than slits, tail stiff.

Add one to the tally of people- well, cat in this case- who were unreasonably and irrationally displeased with Kylo for things beyond his control. Talk about unfair.

However, after a moment, Millicent seemed to sense that something was wrong. Letting out a questioning meow, she padded over to Kylo.

Obligingly, Kylo stooped down to pick her up. He held her against his chest, the warm weight surprisingly comforting, as he shuffled back to the bed, sitting down heavily.

“Oh, Millie…” he said, voice soft, before trailing off into silence.

Purring softly, Millicent rubbed her head against Kylo’s chin. Kylo stroked her fur and suddenly the words came pouring out of him in a furious stream of indignant anger and helpless despair, “Why do I do this to myself? Falling for _Hux_ , of all people. How many times did I warn myself against it? I should have known better, really…”

Kylo sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“I swear, that man’s an emotional black hole! I don’t know why I expected any better. Anyone could have told me that he’s a completely awful person. Stars, he blows up entire planetary systems for a living! Why would he care if he breaks my heart?” Letting out a bark of bitter laughter, Kylo said quietly, in a barely audible murmur, “I was such a fool to hope… Why do I never learn?”

Anger surged in him. Mimicking Hux’s stupid, posh Core accent, Kylo said, “ _This was a mistake_?” Kylo let out an angry snort. “Well, _he’s_ a mistake! Screw Hux. If he wants to be alone and miserable for the rest of his life, so be it. I won’t lift a finger to help him anymore. He doesn’t deserve any kindness—he’s nothing but a monster.”

However, despite Kylo’s angry words, there was still a dull emptiness of feeling in him, despair deadening everything. Even his anger felt half-hearted, an instinctive response, a defence mechanism.

His gaze fell upon the bell on Millicent’s collar, and suddenly, Kylo couldn’t breathe.

Hands shaking, Kylo reached out to undo the collar. Millicent meowed, and there was something almost worried about it, but Kylo ignored her. He held the thin strap of black leather in his hands, trembling fingers clenching down hard on the soft leather.

The tiny Death Star, so intricately and lovingly carved to incredible detail, glinted in the light. It seemed almost to be taunting him. All that _effort_ —all that _sentiment_ —

Kylo had taken a leap of faith, he had dared to _hope_ … and Hux… _Hux had thrown it all back in Kylo’s face_ —

Kylo’s nails were digging grooves into the leather of the collar. Around him, objects were shaking from the force of his rage. Distantly, it registered that Millicent was yowling, loud and distressed, and the metal of the ship’s walls was creaking alarmingly.

“This was a mistake?” Kylo said, “You’re right, Hux. It was.”

His vision was blurring. So Kylo closed his eyes.

Slowly and deliberately, he wrapped the Force around the small, stupid piece of metal he had spent so many Force-forsaken nights slaving over. He could already feel the delicate metal beginning to warp beneath his mental touch. It would take no more than a thought for him to crush it like so much garbage—and why shouldn’t he? Hux had thrown away everything they could have had. He had used Kylo and then left, as if none of what had passed between them in all those small, private moments in Kylo’s rooms had ever mattered. He had played Kylo for a fool. And Kylo was so very, very angry—

But Kylo remembered the way Hux had smiled when he played with the bell _._

Hux had been so… _happy_.

The collar fell from Kylo’s fingers. In the abrupt calm that followed the end of Kylo’s storm of rage, the tinkle of metal as the bell hit the ground seemed abnormally loud.

Kylo opened his eyes again. His room looked as though a hurricane had swept through it. Hux’s collection of datapads were scattered all over the floor, along with a few shattered cups. Sparks were coming off a dangling, half-broken light fixture on the ceiling. The walls of the room were dented and uneven, the metal bulging outwards at parts, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to them. The only thing missing was a few lightsaber slashes. As it was, it would probably take a full team of repair droids to restore everything to its normal state.

Millicent was hiding under Hux’s bed, eyes wide and frightened, and no amount of calling her name would persuade her to budge an inch. As Kylo knelt on the ground to try to coax her out, he was overcome by a wave of intense guilt at just how much stress the poor cat had been put through over the span of the past few hours.

It took some time and a tin of Hux’s dreadful ‘cat food’ as a lure, but eventually Kylo was able to get Millicent out from her hiding spot. Murmuring apologies, he hugged her to his chest, stroking her fur gently.

“I’m so sorry, Millie. I may have been mad at Hux, but I should never have scared you. I was being an irresponsible, reckless idiot. Just like Hux says I am. Looks like he was right about that. I may not be trying to, but somehow, I always just end up hurting everyone I love.” Kylo huffed in bitter laughter, shaking his head as his lips twitched into a humourless smile. “Stars… Me and Hux—we’re both so messed up, aren’t we? You don’t deserve any of this shit. Maybe it’s for the best that you’re going away soon.”

Millicent meowed softly at the mention of Hux’s name. Kylo picked up her collar from where it had fallen on the floor and gently redid it around the cat’s neck. He made an attempt to smile as he stroked Millicent’s head.

“We’ll get through this, Millie. Who needs Hux anyway? He’s nothing but heartbreak and trouble. I should have taken my own advice and steered well clear of him. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with getting _dumped_ like so much garbage.” Kylo huffed angrily, trailing off into silence before saying, “Did you know he wouldn’t let me _touch_ him? During sex? How ridiculous is that?” Kylo let out a disgusted snort. “I suppose he’s afraid I’ll discover the ten-foot pole stuck up his ass. Well, he can fairly well make do with the pole, because I’m sure as hell not going to do the honours. We’ll be better off without him. Don’t you agree?”

Millicent meowed again, tail waving languidly, and Kylo chose to take that as her version of assent.

 

\---

 

Over the next few days, Kylo saw neither hide nor hair of Hux.

Hux sent one of his little toadies in his place for command meetings, citing his busy schedule and the importance of ‘delegation’, but Kylo saw it for the transparent attempt at avoidance that it was. The general had even rearranged his once iron-clad schedule so that none of his shifts on the bridge would coincide with Kylo’s. Despite Kylo’s resolution that he was a hundred and ten percent done with Hux forever, for some strange reason, this still greatly irked him. Hux was _avoiding_ him, the great coward. It was kind of pathetic, and also incredibly galling. Kylo wasn’t about to storm into Hux’s rooms, demanding answers- he had more pride than that- but still, the man could at least do him the courtesy of not running away the moment Kylo showed some sign of so much as breathing in his near vicinity.

All the contact that Kylo had from Hux consisted of one curt text message to his datapad— _Protocol droid coming at 2200 today to collect my personal belongings. Designation of droid: BT-D9L. Kindly facilitate this operation by allowing entry. Your cooperation is appreciated._

“Your cooperation is appreciated?” Kylo said to Millicent in an exaggerated Core accent while making a face. “Who does he think he is? C-3PO? I swear, even that stupid, golden piece of walking scrap metal has more capacity for real emotions than him!”

At 2200 sharp, BT-D9L arrived at Kylo’s rooms. It was a new, top of the line chrome-plated model that was polished to an almost blinding sheen. Kylo hated it on sight.

He was very tempted to hold it down with the Force and force it to watch helplessly as he poured Hux’s things down the trash compactor. Or better, use it for lightsaber practice and send the pieces back to Hux with a note saying, ‘You want your stuff back? Come and get it yourself, you big coward.’

However, this was exactly the sort of mean-spirited, childish pettiness that had gotten Kylo into this whole mess in the first place. So Hux liked to call Kylo an emotionally stunted man-child? Well, Kylo would prove him wrong. He would play along with Hux. He would ‘ _cooperate_ ’.

Therefore, instead of brutally dismembering the droid and then smashing its still-sparking parts into smithereens like he had first wanted to do, Kylo just took a deep breath and waved it into his rooms. He watched, face impassive, as BT-D9L systematically collected Hux’s things and placed them carefully into a large metal crate in neatly organized little compartments.

However, cooperation didn’t have to mean _full_ cooperation.

It was after fifteen minutes of very determined sorting that BT-D9L finally spoke up. “Lord Ren, there appears to be a… discrepancy.” It sounded strangely tentative for a droid. Perhaps the thing still had some form of self-preservation instinct.

“Is that so?” Kylo said. Ever so casually, he let his hand drift lazily towards his lightsaber hilt where it was hooked onto his belt.

If it was possible for a droid to do so, BT-9NL would most likely be gulping in fear. However, it soldiered on dutifully. “General Hux has given me a list of specific items to collect. One of those items is currently not locatable.”

“Really?” said Kylo. “Which one?”

“One standard issue black wool military greatcoat with the rank insignia bands for a First Order General attached, Lord Ren.”

“Hmmm,” Kylo hummed, before smiling sharply. “Can’t say I’ve seen it around. Must be lost. Pity. You’ll just have to go back and tell Hux the bad news.”

“I am afraid that I cannot do that, Sir. General Hux was very specific in his orders that all the items on his list should be collected before I leave.”

“That’s just too bad then,” Kylo said, shrugging, “Tell the good general to suck it up. If he wants his coat, he can come ask me about it himself.”

“Lord Ren, please cooperate. I cannot leave without the missing item. To do so would mean direct disobedience of my orders from General Hux.”

Red light washed over the protocol droid’s gleaming chrome faceplate as Kylo’s lightsaber flared to life, crackling furiously.

Smiling, Kylo leaned in, his voice deadly soft, “I suggest you run this through your logic processors then, droid. Whose displeasure would you rather face? Mine? Or Hux’s?” He paused for a beat. “I’ll give you a helpful hint. Only one of these two people has a lightsaber.”

The droid was out of Kylo’s rooms in record time.

Smiling to himself, Kylo deactivated his lightsaber before using the Force to lift up one of the metal panels on the floor, revealing the mass of piping underneath, from which he retrieved Hux’s greatcoat.

Kylo didn’t know exactly what impulse had driven him to keep the coat. He liked to think that it was because he wanted some answers from Hux and the coat was a way to force Hux to face him- not to mention a way to get back at Hux for so very abruptly cutting Kylo out of his life. But deep down, a part of Kylo suspected that perhaps, some lingering sentiment was involved as well.

Well, that was just ridiculous. Keeping Hux’s coat was a pragmatic, if somewhat spite-driven decision. It was merely a means to an end—a way for Kylo to make the general stop avoiding him, and force Hux to give Kylo a proper explanation. It had nothing at all to do with Kylo’s **former** feelings for Hux. **Obviously**. Kylo was done with Hux. Done. Totally done. He had taken a leap, allowed himself to indulge his foolish hopes, and gotten burnt. Hux may think him an idiot, but Kylo wasn't stupid. He wouldn't allow himself to make that same mistake again.

 

\---

 

However, even despite Kylo holding his precious coat hostage, Hux never showed up. Granted, the general had about half a dozen copies of the very same coat, but Kylo had expected Hux to come storming into his quarters to confront him on principle—after all, Hux was always on Kylo’s case about ‘stealing his things’. Surely he wouldn’t let this latest offence stand?

Unfortunately, let it stand Hux did. It appeared that Hux’s new aversion towards Kylo was even stronger than any anger he had over Kylo wrongfully withholding his coat. It was incredibly frustrating.

Eventually, Hux started to show his face around Kylo’s vicinity again. Kylo supposed that the general couldn’t afford to skip out on command meetings forever. After all, Snoke had hardly been pleased with Hux’s performance lately, and if Hux were seen to be shirking his duties, well… it wouldn’t be pretty.

However, even when Hux did show up, Kylo never got an opportunity to catch him alone.

Kylo didn’t want to make a scene in public. He was all too aware of all the prying eyes around him. This… this _thing_ that was going on between him and Hux—it was their business and their business alone. The thought of all those gossips watching them, delighting in Kylo’s misery—well, it was enough to make Kylo want to simultaneously murder the lot of them and curl up into a ball of shame. Hux probably knew this too, which was why whenever Kylo caught sight of him, he was either with at least one other crew member, or he was quickly and quietly slipping off before Kylo could catch him and drag him somewhere private for a long overdue conversation.

However, Kylo knew that Hux could not hide forever. The Finalizer may be a huge ship, but the fact that Hux and Kylo were both in positions of command meant that they would inevitably be forced together.

Patience and subtlety were not normally Kylo’s strong suit; a few months ago, he would probably have stormed right into Hux’s quarters and held Hux down with the Force until the other man gave him the time of the day—but perhaps Hux was rubbing off on him. Instead, Kylo chose to bide his time and wait for Hux to slip up. After all, when Kylo could easily sense his quarry through the Force, the man hardly had a chance to hide from him.

Finally, one day Kylo’s patience paid off and he managed to catch Hux off guard.

It was late at night and Hux was walking down a corridor alone with quick, brusque strides. He had his usual expression on his face. In other words, he looked as though he had spent the whole day sucking on a lemon.

That expression briefly disappeared from Hux’s face though, replaced by shock, when Kylo suddenly stepped out from behind a corner and planted himself right in the general’s path, causing Hux to reel backwards, hastily backpedalling before he could smack into Kylo’s chest.

The sour expression returned to Hux’s face in full force. Fists clenched and eyes narrowed in a murderous glare, Hux hissed in a tone of utterly venomous politeness, “Ren, would you _kindly_ learn to respect the concept of _personal space_?”

“Hmm, it’s strange you should say that,” Kylo said, folding his arms over his chest as he arched an eyebrow at Hux, “because I don’t remember you complaining the other day when you put my dick into your mouth. There wasn’t a whole lot of space between us then. Unless you count the metaphorical chasm that formed from all your mountains of trust issues and emotional baggage.”

“We’re done here,” Hux said, turning sharply on his heel.

Kylo grabbed the general by the shoulder before he could stalk off, tugging Hux back to face him. Hux shook Kylo’s hand off roughly, bristling with obvious fury.

“Don’t touch me. Just fuck off, Ren,” he snarled before turning his back on Kylo again and striding off, shoulders stiff, his greatcoat flaring behind him.

However, his steps slowed when Kylo drawled, the words loud in the otherwise dead silence of the corridor, “Running away again, Hux? Funny. I never took you for a coward.”

Hux came to a standstill, shoulders stiff. His back was still facing Kylo.

“What do you want from me, Ren?” Hux bit out harshly. It was hard to tell, but Kylo thought he could see the minute trembling of Hux’s clenched fists.

“Another blow job, I guess? Or for you to be less of an asshole. But I’ll settle for something more realistic— like an explanation. You owe me that, at the very least.”

Hux had turned back to face Kylo, and the glare that he sent Kylo’s way was utterly withering. “I don’t owe you anything. _We_ don’t owe each other anything.”

“I beg to disagree,” Kylo said, “You owe me the truth. Why are you doing this, Hux? I know that you do- or at least you _did_ \- have feelings for me.”

Hux snorted dismissively, scowling, but Kylo ignored him, continuing “When you saved me during Starkiller’s collapse, you didn’t just spare my life because you wanted to sleep with me. You may try to act like you’re nothing but a cruel, emotionless monster, but I know better. There are actual feelings buried in that cold, dead heart of yours.”

Kylo pressed in closer, edging into Hux’s personal space again. He very deliberately met Hux’s eyes as he said, “You can fool the world, Hux. But you can’t fool me.”

Hux growled, the first sign of overt aggression Kylo had ever seen from the normally so tightly controlled man. Eyes flashing in anger, Hux bit out, “Stop deluding yourself, Ren. It was just a quick shag. A momentary lapse in judgment because we were both too lust-addled to think straight. And now you’re acting like a needy ex? I told you already. I was a fool to think that we could be anything but enemies.”

Voice cruel, Hux hissed, “Did you seriously think there could ever be anything between us? You’re nothing but a reckless, insolent child who can’t even obey simple orders. All I ever wanted from you was a good fuck, but you couldn’t even give that to me. Why then would I want to keep you around?”

Kylo struggled to rein in his temper. Hux was baiting him, he knew it. “You forget, Hux. I know your tactics by now. You try to belittle and mock me, but it’s all just to hide your real feelings.”

“Believe what you like, Ren. It doesn’t change the truth,” Hux said, snide and dismissive, with casual contempt. “Did you think that your sweet little gestures of kindness would sway me? Maybe they worked for a while—I did find your awkward attempts at buying my favour quite charming. I suppose being your _friend_ made for an entertaining diversion. But eventually I got tired. Tired of having to deal with you, and all your pathetic neediness. You want someone to love you so much that you made up this whole quaint little fantasy about me.”

Hux’s eyes bore into Kylo’s mercilessly, his smile sharp as a dagger. “You say that I try to act like I’m nothing but a cold, emotionless monster—but I’m afraid that there’s no _acting_ involved here whatsoever. I _am_ a monster. I don’t deny it. Tell me, Ren—did you truly think that I would _stop_ being a monster, just because you loved me?”

There was a cold feeling at the pit of Kylo’s stomach.

Mockingly sweet, Hux said, “I’m sorry to have to break this to you—but the person you think I am? The one with _feelings_ and a _capacity for love_? That man exists only in your head.”

Kylo was trying so hard not to give into his anger that his nails were digging into the flesh of his palms. He concentrated on the physical hurt, instead of his heartbreak and the furious urge to smash Hux’s smug, sneering face in. Hux was lying. He had to be. After all, Hux had claimed not to care about Millicent, but he had been lying then too. Hux was just afraid of emotional attachments because of that ridiculous fixation he had about sentiment being a weakness. He was trying to drive Kylo away because he thought that caring was a liability, not because he really hated Kylo.

Through gritted teeth, Kylo hissed, “You’re lying. I’ve seen your mind. In fact— ” he said triumphantly, in a sudden flash of inspiration, “I could dig the truth out of you now. Have you forgotten that I have the power to read thoughts?”

“Didn’t you promise not to read my mind without my permission?” Hux said, smiling thinly.

Kylo just glared back, saying, “Why should I care about that promise? After all, if you really are so much of a monster, why should I show you any kindness or mercy?”

Yet, Hux did not show any signs of fear. “Go ahead then,” he said daringly, pointedly meeting Kylo’s eyes. “Invade my mind. Plunder my thoughts and lay bare all my secrets. It’s not like I can do anything to stop you anyway.”

Kylo stared into Hux’s grey-green eyes. Hux’s face was blank, utterly impassive. There was absolutely nothing to betray him if he was indeed lying.  Where once upon a time Kylo could have sensed Hux’s emotions without even trying, now there was nothing but a cold, dead void. That… thing between them, that bond—it wasn’t dead, not completely, but it certainly was fractured. And now that Kylo actually thought about it, he realized that he had been subconsciously blocking it off all along, ever since that day when Hux had spoken to him so curtly and then left.

Kylo wanted so badly to get back at Hux for all his cruel words. He wanted to dig the truth out of Hux so that he could prove to himself that he had been right all along. And yet, he found that he couldn’t bring himself to attempt even the slightest mental brush against Hux’s mind.

Perhaps it was sentiment that prevented Kylo from entering Hux’s mind. Even after all of this, Kylo had to admit that he still cared too much about Hux to make a deliberate, conscious decision to hurt him. But maybe it was also because Kylo was too afraid of what he would discover there. What if his mental probe only confirmed that Hux had been telling the truth all along?

And so Kylo just stood there, frozen, staring into Hux’s cold, emotionless eyes.

After a while, Hux began to smile. There was a darkly amused lilt to his voice as he said, “Just as I thought. You don’t have the guts to do it. You always were too soft, Ren.”

With that, he strode away, coat sweeping out behind him. Kylo could only stare after him with a sense of defeat. He was filled with a numb sort of anger—at Hux, but mostly at himself.

What had he thought he was going to gain by confronting Hux like this? Was an explanation truly all he wanted from Hux? Or was it that for all his claims to have washed his hands off Hux forever, Kylo still cared too much to truly let him go?

Was Kylo just deluding himself, as Hux said he was? Seeing goodness where there was none out of some pathetic, wretched need to be loved?

Heaviness in his chest, Kylo returned to his private quarters. It was with quiet grief that he curled up on his bed, Millicent tucked against his chest, purring soothingly. In his hands was the coat he had stolen from Hux. He pretended not to notice the way that his vision was blurring or how dark spots of moisture were forming on the wool of the coat he was clutching so tightly in his fingers.

He should burn the damned thing, tear it to shreds, toss it down the trash compactor, but instead Kylo just pressed his face into the coat and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Hux. What an asshole, amirite? Hang in there, folks. Hux will eventually get over himself and all his issues. This is after all a KYLUX fic, and the 'UX' is in there for a reason ;D
> 
> I thought about naming the protocol droid IN-D9L, but that was a little too on the nose, even for me.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again to all my amazing betas, including the-cookie-of-doom who just joined the team this chapter! This fic is immeasurably better for their efforts <3 Any remaining errors are, of course, all mine.

 

There was a loud crash and a shower of sparks as a body hit the navigation console with great force. Said body slumped to the ground, groaning weakly, as Kylo stalked towards it, looming over the crumpled form.

Voice dangerously soft, Kylo hissed, “Your incompetence astounds me, Yuko. Fail me one more time and you will face the _full_ consequences of my wrath.”

The officer who Kylo had just thrown into a console stared up at Kylo’s masked visage as if Kylo were some apparition out of his worst nightmares. His face was so pale it was practically white; he looked as though he was two seconds away from fainting.

Kylo raised his right hand and began to close his fingers, ever so slowly, in a choking motion.

The officer let out a mewl of fear and tried to scramble away. There was a rapidly darkening spot at the front of his trousers.

 _Pathetic_.

Sneering beneath his mask, Kylo swept away in a twirl of robes.

Stormtroopers and officers alike practically leapt out of his way as Kylo strode through the corridors. Undoubtedly, the news about Kylo being on the warpath had already spread through the ranks like wildfire. Kylo’s temper was… not the best, even on normal days. Given recent events, the crew was right in fearing for their lives and safety.

Kylo had already Force-choked three junior officers and two stormtroopers, destroyed eight control panels, and now, Force-pushed Lieutenant Yuko into a navigation console. It was an impressive tally, especially given that all of this had happened within the span of less than half a day.

Gritting his teeth so hard his jaw was trembling, Kylo stalked down to the Officer’s Gym. In lieu of Hux’s stupid face, the punching bags in the gym would have to suffice as an outlet of Kylo’s rage. Maybe it would take away some of this damned heaviness in his chest—the sensation was so dreadful, so wretched, that it was almost a physical ache.

However, even after beating the shit out of the punching bag, imagining it was Hux all the while, Kylo found that the heaviness in his chest had not lessened. If anything, it had gotten even worse.

Kylo’s breaths came harsh and heavy, his chest heaving. When he happened to glance down, he was startled to find that his knuckles were bleeding, the skin split. The blood was soaking into his hand wraps, staining them red. However, Kylo didn’t bother to see to his wounds. He just continued pummelling the bag, Hux’s mocking words echoing in his mind.

 _You’re nothing but a reckless, insolent child who can’t even obey simple orders._ _All I ever wanted from you was a good fuck, but you couldn’t even give that to me._

 _I suppose being your_ _friend_ _made for an entertaining diversion. But eventually I got tired. Tired of having to deal with you, and all your pathetic neediness._ _You want someone to love you so much that you made up this whole quaint little fantasy about me._

Kylo was trembling, his mouth flooded with the coppery taste of blood from where he had bitten into his lip. When his injured fists connected with the bag, it sent shocks of pain through him, but Kylo barely even flinched. Instead, it just fuelled his rage.

 _Tell me, Ren—did you truly think that I would_ _stop_ _being a monster, just because you loved me?_

_You always were too soft, Ren._

There was a great crashing noise and the bag flew across the room, sliding across the polished floor to come to a rest at the wall. Panting heavily, Kylo stared at the broken bag and the trail of sand it had left behind it. He felt like his insides were twisting from the maelstrom of emotions churning in him.

Kylo was the grandson of the greatest Sith Lord to ever live, and apprentice to Supreme Leader Snoke. He had slaughtered innocent children, committed so many massacres that he could barely keep count. His hands, by proxy, were stained with the blood of billions. He had tortured and maimed and killed. He had even murdered his own father to prove his worth. To prove that the Light had no hold on him.

Why did he want so much for Hux to love him?

Kylo spent a few moments just breathing heavily and looking at his bloodied knuckles, his harsh pants loud in his ears.

Then he raised his face. His gaze met with that of the wide-eyed officer across the room at the weight training section.

“What the hell are you looking at?” he snarled.

“N-nothing,” the officer stuttered out, before hastily adding, “Lord Ren, Sir.”

He pretended to look away, seemingly utterly engrossed in his contemplation of the various dumbbells on display.

Kylo felt rage rising in him again, and he raised his hand to channel the Force—

There was a tap on his shoulder. Kylo spun around, utterly furious. Who the fuck had the audacity to actually _touch him?_ He would teach them a real lesson. _Nobody crossed him_ —

Kylo stopped short when he was met with the sight of short, neatly gelled blonde hair and a steely blue gaze. He was so startled that for a moment he even forgot to be angry.

Phasma. Kylo should have known.

Phasma was dressed in standard-issue gym attire like him: a dark grey tank top emblazoned with the First Order symbol and black gym shorts. She smiled at him languidly, utterly fearless. Despite himself, Kylo felt his anger fading away. For some reason, he couldn’t help but find Phasma’s insouciance (and apparent disregard for her personal safety) strangely charming.

Still smiling lazily, she said, “I hear you’ve been breaking people. And this ship. So I’ve got a proposal for you.” She jerked a thumb back towards the practice mats at the other end of the gym. “You. Me. Three rounds. Loser buys the winner a drink at the Officers’ Bar.”

“I don’t drink,” Kylo said automatically.

Phasma waved a hand at him dismissively. “It’s fine. We won’t have to worry about that. I only added it in for my benefit.”

“Brave words,” Kylo said, and Phasma grinned, fierce and feral. She had always reminded Kylo of a Dire-cat— all lithe grace and startling swiftness.

By some unspoken agreement, they moved towards the mat, Phasma wrapping her hands along the way with precise, practiced movements.

“I won’t use the Force,” Kylo said.

Phasma quirked an eyebrow at him. “Going easy on me, Ren?”

“I don’t need to resort to using my powers in order to beat you, Captain.”

“So you say.” Phasma smiled, sharp and dangerous, and then without warning, she was coming at him, delivering a swift uppercut to his chin. Kylo just barely dodged it. He tried to retaliate with a blow to her solar plexus, but Phasma was already darting away, grinning widely, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She looked like she was having the time of her life. She beckoned at him, smiling tauntingly.

“Come on, Ren. Show me what you’ve got.”

A few minutes later, Kylo was on the mat. He was beginning to regret his earlier promise not to use the Force. For someone without any Force powers, Phasma was still an extremely formidable opponent. She was slippery and fast—almost as fast as Kylo when he used the Force to enhance his reflexes. Also, she played _incredibly_ dirty. Kylo still hurt from the jab that she had delivered to his left kidney. Kylo was not a particularly honourable fighter himself, but still, Phasma took underhandedness to a whole new level.

Kylo was starting to see why Phasma had risen so quickly through the ranks, and why she held so much power despite being a ‘mere’ Stormtrooper Captain.

“Giving up already?” Phasma said. She didn’t even sound out of breath. A few strands of her blonde hair had fallen out of place, and she was covered in a light sheen of sweat, but other than that, she looked as though she had done nothing more than take a brisk, refreshing jog on the treadmill.

Kylo ignored the hand that Phasma extended to him, pushing himself up back onto his feet. His back gave an audible creak, but Kylo very manfully did not groan.

The next time Kylo hit the mat, he groaned. Phasma extended her hand to him again, and this time Kylo took it.

“One more go?” Phasma was smiling. “Maybe I’ll even let you win this time.”

“Let’s just get you that drink,” Kylo said tiredly as he began to unwrap the blood-stained cloth from his hands.

“Good plan,” Phasma said.

 

\---

 

“Why are you doing this?” Kylo asked.

Phasma was sipping at her drink, a vodka tonic. She was back in her armour, sans helmet. Said helmet was propped up against her arm on the table of their private booth.

“This? You mean drinking?” Phasma said, “It’s a good way to destress, especially after you’ve had a long day breaking in the raw recruits.” She raised her glass at Kylo and winked. “Hey. Thanks for the free drink.”

Kylo growled, the tones coming out distorted from the voice modulator in his helmet. It seemed that Phasma, just like Hux, had a fondness for playing coy.

“We’re not friends, Phasma. Why are you sparring with me? _Hanging out-_ “ Kylo sneered, even though the mask hid it, “-with me in a bar?”

“Maybe I just wanted a free drink,” Phasma replied, all airy nonchalance. She put her glass down on the table, throwing Kylo a sly, sidelong glance. “Or maybe I was tired of watching you wreck everything. You do know that we need the crew in order to fly this ship, yes? You were breaking my men. And I don’t like that. Do you have any idea how much effort it takes to train them?” Idly, she added, “Have you ever considered anger management therapy? Or maybe a stress ball?”

Anyone else would be hanging in mid-air and choking to death right now. Phasma just sat there as though she had not a care in the world, smiling without a hint of fear.

Her unfinished glass of vodka tonic shattered under the force of Kylo’s rage, the drink spilling everywhere. However, Phasma didn’t even flinch. She just shook her head and tutted, eyes flicking down to the pieces of glass and the liquid spreading over the table.

“What a waste. You owe me another drink, Ren. I didn’t even manage to get through half of that one.”

“Why do you care so much, Phasma?” Kylo spat, “You’re not my personal therapist. My emotional state is none of your business.”

“On the contrary, Lord Ren,” Phasma said, “It is very much my business. See. You and General Hux are the closest things I have to, well, colleagues. Instead of human resources that I have to routinely whip into shape. And the two of you have been behaving rather… erratically… recently. I don’t usually bother with gossip. And Hux has been rather tight-lipped on the issue—”

Kylo growled threateningly, the leather of his gloves creaking as he clenched his fists. “You had better not be talking about what I think you’re talking about.”

Phasma continued, as if Kylo hadn’t said a thing, “But I think it’s fairly apparent what has been going on. And it’s affecting both of your performances. That won’t do.”

“What does this have to do with you?” Kylo muttered curtly. Now he wished he had gotten himself a drink too. Despite his disdain for mind-altering substances, it appeared that getting himself completely plastered was possibly the only way he would be getting through—if not _out_ of this conversation.

“Why the fuck do you care? We’re colleagues, not _friends_. You barely even speak two sentences to me normally. And-” Kylo added, a bitter twist to his lips, “-it’s not like you and Hux are very buddy-buddy. You only hang out sometimes, and that’s because you’re the only other person in the Order who’s at his level other than me—and he can’t stand me. Stars, you didn’t even try to stand up for him when I killed his cat. You even _congratulated_ me.”

“I don’t take sides,” Phasma said simply. “How you chose to take my words is up to you. In any case, what is there to gain by engaging in shows of pointless heroics? Hux doesn’t need me to stand up for him, even if I did want to. He can take care of himself.”

Kylo snorted in disgust. “You’re a real pal, Phasma. A really nice person. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Besides,” Phasma drawled, smiling thinly, her tone sly. “Now that recent events have come to light, I’m beginning to think that you have perhaps not been as… upfront about the true state of things as it seems. The others might not suspect a thing— but I know Hux. He would _never_ sleep with anyone who killed his cat, not even if it meant his death. I wonder… If I go into your rooms now, would I find a certain ginger furball there?”

Kylo glared at her, even though he knew she couldn’t see it. Phasma smiled in victory at Kylo’s continuing silence. “So I thought. You ask why I bother—well, I find you and Hux surprisingly tolerable. I like our working arrangement, and I would like things to go back to normal. That can’t happen when the two of you are moping around like kicked puppies.”

Kylo was speechless for a few seconds, before he finally gritted out, “I am not… _moping around_ … like a— a _kicked puppy_.”

“Like a kicked puppy,” Phasma repeated, before tapping a finger against her chin. “Arguably an _angrier_ kind of kicked puppy that goes around wrecking things, in your case, but yes. You get what I mean.”

“I am **not** moping,” Kylo insisted, before snorting angrily. “And anyway, _Hux?_ Moping? He doesn’t give two shits. What gave you the ridiculous idea that he’s even the slightest bit of affected by this? There are _rocks_ out there with more emotion than him.”

Phasma didn’t show any change in expression, but Kylo got the distinct impression that she was rolling her eyes internally.

“I don’t know what Hux said to you, but I do know one thing— Hux is the type of person who is _very_ bad at expressing any sort of unguarded, genuine emotion. When he says that he doesn’t care? Most likely, he cares. _Deeply._ More than he would ever want to admit.”

Somehow Phasma managed to find Kylo’s gaze even through the tinted visor of his helmet, and she held it unblinkingly as she said, “I’ve never seen anyone affect him as much as you. And I don’t mean all the theatrics from Millicent’s supposed ‘death’. I’m talking about what happened afterwards. I’m talking about the way he smiled more easily, the way his laughs were lighter… He was _different_ , back when the two of you were still together. Maybe nobody else noticed, but I did. And why do you think he avoided you for so long? Why was it that he couldn’t bring himself to see you after the two of you broke up? Are those the actions of a man who doesn’t care?”

Kylo stared at Phasma, an unsettling emotion churning in his chest. He didn’t want to hope. It was too painful to hope.

“Food for thought, Ren. I’ll leave you with these little morsels to chew over.” Phasma stood, took her helmet in hand, and flashed Kylo a smile. “Let’s do this again someday. Don’t forget, you still owe me that drink.”

Kylo watched as she strode through the crowd of off-duty officers, her black and red cape trailing behind her, until the crush of bodies swallowed her and he could no longer catch any glimpses of her glinting silver armour in the dim half-light of the bar.

 

\---

 

Kylo tried his best to ignore it, but he couldn’t help thinking about what Phasma said. He knew how dangerous it was to hope—what happened to once bitten, twice shy?—but some part of him wanted so very, very badly to believe. Damn Phasma for making him hope. This was probably what Hux and Snoke would call ‘weakness’, but Kylo was weak. He would admit that to himself.

Hux had hurt him deeply, and Kylo hated him for that. But Kylo also couldn’t completely bring himself to let Hux go. It was a real dilemma, and Kylo didn’t know what to do. In order to prevent himself from thinking too deeply about it and getting sucked in once again to that whirling maelstrom of emotion, Kylo decided to do what he liked to do when trying to distract himself from thinking about things.

He went to steal Millicent some salmon.

He was on the way to the kitchens, passing by the section of the ship which housed the conference rooms, when officers started to trickle out of a room. Kylo caught sight of a flash of red hair.

Shit. Hux.

Kylo hastily threw himself back behind the corner and flattened himself against the wall, praying to the Force that nobody had seen him. Then he immediately felt extremely foolish. This was his flagship. He had as much right to be here as Hux. He didn’t have to hide like some kind of criminal just because Hux was around too. He wasn’t afraid of having to face Hux. Of course not. That would be childish. And Kylo, despite all of Hux’s insinuations to the contrary, was **not** a child.

Kylo took a deep breath. He was about to step out from behind the corner when he heard the laughter. There was something very mocking about it.

“Did you hear about it? Lord Ren’s in a real mood,” someone said, voice snide, “I wonder what caused that. Or _who_ , I might say.”

More laughter.

“Do you have any idea, General Hux? Last I heard, you and Lord Ren were quite… _close_.”

There was a pause, silence. Kylo surreptitiously peeked out from behind the corner, trying not to be too obvious in his spying.

Hux was standing, shoulders stiff, in the middle of the corridor. It was obvious that he had just stopped in his tracks. A group of other officers was clustered around the exit of the conference room. Kylo vaguely recognized some of them as belonging to Hux’s group of little toadies. There was an obvious ringleader— the blonde-haired, sharp-faced man who had just spoken. He had a cocky smirk on his face, and his demeanour practically screamed his self-perceived superiority. It made Kylo’s hackles rise almost immediately.

Michaels, Kylo believed his name was.

“Oh wait. I forgot.” Michaels put a hand to his mouth, as if just realizing he had misspoken, an exaggeratedly contrite expression on his face. “That isn’t the case anymore, is it? I’m sorry. It mustn’t be easy, being kicked out of your lover’s bed. Even if he _is_ your worst enemy. I guess it wasn’t so surprising then, that he would tire of you.”

Another wave of mocking laughter from the spectators. All the officers were smiling, sharp, cruel smirks of private amusement.

Hux gritted his teeth, scowling, but he didn’t say anything to defend himself.

Sickly sweet, Michaels continued, “Could you tell us more about him, Sir? Lord Ren, I mean. We’re all very curious, so I was hoping you could enlighten us. Is he truly as much of a monster as he seems? Is he horribly disfigured beneath that mask? I’ve always wondered how anyone could possibly agree to being his lover. Does he make you do terrible things?” Michaels lowered his voice, as if they were discussing some intimate secret between friends. He was smiling sharply. “Does he make you beg? Does he- you know- choke you? He seems like he’d be into that kind of thing.”

Any moment now, Kylo expected Hux to start speaking up for himself, to refute all of Michael’s ludicrous statements. But again, Hux did nothing to defend himself.

Smirking, Michaels said, voice musing, “To think—he killed your precious cat. He humiliated you in every way. And yet… you still went crawling to him. Did he propose the arrangement? Or did you?” When Hux didn’t answer, Michaels continued, tone blithe, “I guess when you’re in the Supreme Leader’s bad books, you can’t afford to be too picky.”

A cruel smile on his face, he drawled, “However, I do wonder… how truly _desperate_ a man must be to consent to being used in such a way? Even the _lowest_ , most _wretched_ whore on Nar Shadda would probably think twice about agreeing to being subjected to such horrors, even if it was to save _their own worthless skin_. I guess one makes do when times are hard. Beggars can’t be choosers. And to the victor go the spoils.” Michaels spread his hands, smiling thinly and shaking his head in mock pity. “But now Ren’s tired of his new plaything. You won’t be long for the world, I think. Without Ren around, who’s going to protect you, General Hux?”

Michaels laughed. “How the mighty fall.” He sneered. “Just look at you now. No better than a common whore. You’re such a pathetic failure that even a monster afraid of showing his own face doesn’t want you. Rejected goods.”

Hux stayed silent, though his expression was pained. His eyes were closed, and his fists clenched so tightly that his hands were trembling and his knuckles showed white. He was biting his lip so hard it was a wonder he hadn’t yet started bleeding.

Kylo was utterly furious. He didn’t even care about all the offensive things Michaels had said about him—he was used to the crew thinking that he was a horrible monster, in fact, he did everything in his power to cultivate that terrifying image—but the way Michaels had talked about Hux… that was _unbearable_. And Hux was just standing there and _taking it_ —

“Why so quiet, General?” Michaels was saying sweetly, “You usually love the sound of your own—urk—”

Michaels began to choke, hands flying to his throat as he grabbed uselessly at fingers that weren’t there.

Kylo strode out from behind the corner, one hand held out in front of him. Michaels rose slowly into the air, still grabbing uselessly at his throat.

All the other officers scrambled away from him, as if they were afraid that the choking might be catching.

“Did you have something you wanted to say, Michaels?” Kylo said, “An apology to the general, perhaps? Oh dear. I’m afraid that I can’t hear you over the sound of you slowly choking to death.”

Kylo slowly began to close his fingers, and the Force grip he had around Michaels’ throat tightened. The officer’s eyes were bulging, and his face was beginning to turn an alarming shade of purple.

“Does anyone else have anything to say about General Hux?” Kylo said casually to the ashen-faced officers, all of whom looked as though they would rather be trapped in a Sarlacc pit than stuck here on the same ship as Kylo. In the background, there were a few faint gurgling noises as Michaels continued to choke to death. “Go on. I’m listening.”

“Ren, stop this.”

Hux was looking at him, a strange, tight look on his face.

“Are you mad, Hux?” Kylo said, incredulous, “Did you not hear what he said about you? The fact that I’m killing him now instead of cutting off his tongue and torturing him is far more mercy than he deserves.”

“Let him go,” Hux insisted.

“No,” Kylo said, ignoring Hux. He tightened his grip on Michaels throat as the officer gasped helplessly, convulsing in mid-air.  Kylo smiled darkly, delighted by the sight of Michaels’ suffering. He wanted to draw this out, to make things as painful as possible, but frankly, he couldn’t wait for the moment when the last of the light went out of this sneering little upstart’s eyes.

“Release him now, Ren,” Hux’s voice was urgent. He had moved over to Kylo’s side, but Kylo just ignored him, a grimly satisfied smile on his face as he squeezed just that bit tighter. He could practically hear Michaels’ death rattle.

Suddenly, Hux’s hand was on his shoulder, and Kylo was so startled by that unexpected contact that his connection with the Force broke. Michaels fell to the floor, wheezing, chest heaving as he sucked in great gulps of air in between his hacking coughs.

Before Kylo could protest, Hux was manhandling him, practically dragging him away from Michaels. He managed to push Kylo into an empty conference room, locking the doors behind them, before Kylo recovered enough to glare at him.

There was a thunderous expression on Hux’s face. “What the hell did you do that for?” he demanded.

“What the hell did _you_ do that for?” Kylo retorted incredulously, “He was saying all those horrible things about you—and you just—just stood there and let him _malign_ you—” Kylo paused to suck in a quick breath. “—You didn’t even defend yourself! What the kriffing hell, Hux! Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you at least punish him? He was disrespecting your authority! Stars, he called you a whore for sleeping with me! How can you just take that lying down? Why the hell did you stop me from killing him?”

Hux snorted, shaking his head dismissively. “This may come as a shock to you, Ren, but not every problem is solved by _killing people_. My classmates at the Academy called me far worse things. This is nothing. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve heard people say things like that on this ship.” His face was impassive as he said, “My position in the First Order has been… tenuous for some time now. This is no more, or less, than what I expected. People will always talk. And even if I were to stop them from saying it, they would still think it. There is no point in retaliation. If I went around executing everyone who said such things, very soon there would be no one left to crew the ship. Michaels is one of my best officers—a little overconfident perhaps, and prone to gloating—but he does good work. Killing him would not be in the interests of the First Order.”

Kylo glared at Hux in a mix of disbelief and anger. “I can’t even _believe_ you, Hux. You mercilessly blow up an entire planetary system, but now you won’t even let me kill a subordinate who insulted you? You would rather just stand there and let him fling shit all over you. Good worker or not, you should have killed him yourself—or at the very least, had him court-martialled for that kind of behaviour! What kind of example are you setting for the troops?”

Some strange emotion passed across Hux’s face, unreadable. He glanced away, eyes half-lidded. “There’s no point,” he said in a quiet mutter. “It would take too much effort. I have far better things to do with my time.”

Kylo felt like he was about to burst from exasperation. Of all the things he had expected Hux to be, a doormat was not one of them. The general had certainly never been such a pushover when Kylo was the one fighting with him. Glaring, he snapped, “What the hell’s wrong with you, Hux? Do you _like_ to suffer? Are you some kind of closet masochist?”

Hux snorted, folding his arms. “Some would say I am.” He chuckled humourlessly. His tone was so dry and business-like that Kylo almost missed the implications of it when he said, “After all, why else would I— with a whole ship full of people— responsible, stable, mature people—” Hux let out a small, bitter laugh, “—choose to fall for _you_?”

Kylo goggled at him in shock. “Did you just—”

There was a wryly amused smile on Hux’s face as he chuckled darkly. “What do you think that love would bring you, Ren?” He paused for a beat. “Absolution? Happiness? Relief from your pain? Love will bring you nothing but suffering—surely you’ve learned this by now. Nothing good can come from it.”

Kylo finally found his voice, “So you _were_ lying to me.”

Hux looked away, not meeting Kylo’s gaze. He played with a sleeve of his coat, fingering the rank insignia bands on it as he said, “Yes. You were right. I was lying. I do…” His throat worked, and when the words finally came out, they sounded slightly forced, almost as though it physically pained Hux to admit it. “-care for you.”

Kylo let out a snort of frustration. “Then why couldn’t you just admit that in the first place—you know, like a _normal person_? And stop looking like you’re being _tortured_! Why do you have to keep acting like being in love with me is a fate worse than death?”

Hux made a small dismissive noise, and Kylo had to resist the urge to reach out and shake some sense into him.

“Is this a trust thing? Do you think that I’m doing this just to—to manipulate you? That this is some kind of— twisted power play, just like all your nasty little minions seem to think it is. You know that I’m not that kind of person, right?”

“Yes, yes. I know.” Hux snapped irritably, scowling. “Even if I didn’t, I think I would have been enlightened after the way you so very valiantly leapt in to _defend my honour_.” Hux let out a disgusted snort. “Stars, you’re so stupidly and sickeningly honourable that I sometimes wonder what you’re even doing here in the First Order. Admittedly, I did suspect you of having ulterior motives at first, but then I realized how ridiculous it was to attribute that high a level of thought to you when you couldn’t even bring yourself to keep lying to me about my cat.”

Kylo glowered at him. “Is this a punishment thing, then? I stole your cat, put you into torment for weeks, and this is your way of getting back at me?”

“No!” Hux said, exasperation clear in every line of his face. “I will admit that I still haven’t entirely forgiven you for lying about Millicent. But no, this is not, as you say, a ‘punishment thing’.”

“What is it then? Is it that Bantha fodder you’re always spouting about caring not being an advantage—”

Hux’s jaw clenched. “It is _not_ Bantha fodder,” he hissed.

“—You know, the Jedi would have liked you. At least the ones from the time of the Old Republic—they had this fixation about attachment being dangerous—”

“Did you just compare me to the _Jedi_?” Hux was glaring at Kylo as though Kylo had just mortally offended him. It was rather ironic that he appeared more insulted by this than by all Michaels’ insinuations.

Kylo continued, ignoring Hux’s outrage, “It was utterly ridiculous. I wouldn’t even be here if my grandfather had strictly followed the Jedi Code. The only good thing Luke Skywalker did when forming the new Jedi Order was abolishing the rule against attachments— Not that I don’t still think that all the Jedi should be wiped out—”

“Will you stop blathering on about Jedi, Ren?” Hux said, clearly annoyed. “I don’t care what your uncle did. And I most certainly do not need to hear more about your illustrious grandfather’s exploits.”

Kylo scowled at him, displeased, but Hux just continued speaking, a note of urgency creeping into his tone. There was something almost manic about the look in his eyes. “Listen very carefully to me, Ren. I’m trying to do you a _favour_ , you idiot. Don’t you see that this will only end badly? For both of us. Our enemies will use us against each other. And Snoke—do you think he’s going to just, what—let us be? Give us his blessing?”

Hux laughed bitterly.

“You’re his prized prodigy. I’m just a disgraced failure of a general whose pet project literally blew up in his face. My fate was sealed the moment Starkiller became so much ashes and dust. I know very well that there’s a noose around my neck—it just hasn’t tightened yet. The only reason why I’m still alive now is because Snoke finds it more convenient than trying to find a replacement. But the moment I’m more trouble than I’m worth—like say, if I were to take up with his precious apprentice, create a division of loyalties—well, let’s just say I will truly have outlived my usefulness.”

Kylo opened his mouth, words already springing to his tongue about how he wouldn’t let that happen—he’d die before Snoke laid a finger on Hux—but Hux just made an impatient shushing noise at him and said, “Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t want to hear it. Just keep your mouth shut and let me finish. I’m already doomed, I’ve accepted that. But you’re not. You’re Snoke’s only apprentice. Much as it pains me to say it, you have a bright future within the First Order. If you play your cards right, I have no doubt that you’ll even fulfil your dreams of achieving your grandfather’s legacy.”

Kylo stared at Hux in shock. This was possibly the most straightforwardly nice thing that Hux had ever said to him. Did the general genuinely believe that Kylo could fulfil Darth Vader’s legacy? Kylo never knew that Hux had so much faith in him. Nobody—not even Snoke—had ever said anything as encouraging to Kylo as this.

Heedless of Kylo’s shock, Hux continued, “Would you really throw all of that away just so that we can be together? If you throw in your lot with me, you’re only going to doom us both. Can’t you see? You still have a chance. Don’t waste it. Take my advice, Ren. Just cut your losses and leave. We’ll both be better off that way.”

Abruptly, Kylo thought of a Kath Hound pup and a boy. Sometimes you had to do bad things to achieve a greater good. Sometimes to save someone, you had to drive them away.

A lot of Hux’s actions were starting to make sense now. Hux had said all those cruel things to Kylo—tried to hurt him and drive him away—because that was the only way he knew how to protect the things he loved. Filled with a new sense of understanding, Kylo stepped closer, right into Hux’s personal space.

 This time Hux didn’t retreat. Kylo very deliberately held Hux’s gaze as he said, “You’re wrong, Hux. We are already bound together. Our fates were inextricably linked the moment you lifted your blaster from my forehead and carried me aboard that shuttle.”

There was a sneer on Hux’s face. “ _Fates? Linked?_ ” he spat, “What fanciful nonsense.”

He snorted, disdainful. Tone biting, he said dismissively, “I never took you for a hopeless romantic _,_ Ren _._ ”

“It’s not nonsense,” Kylo said, “It’s extremely real. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it too. The bond between us.”

He reached out slowly, giving Hux every chance to back away. However, Hux didn’t move an inch as Kylo’s fingers came to rest gently upon his cheek. Quietly, Kylo said, “You may not believe in the Force, Hux. But even you must admit that there’s something greater than you and I at play here.”

Hux was still scowling. “So you’re saying that this mysterious ‘Force’ of yours wants us to be together? That it’s somehow _destined_?” Hux’s tone was dripping with sarcasm, “Written in the stars, perhaps? And we have no choice but to bow to the mandates of fate and destiny? To the whims of this ‘Force’?”

“No,” Kylo said, “A Force bond doesn’t just form like that. It’s not just some unilaterally imposed decision, Hux, by the Force, or by me—the bond would never have taken unless some part of you, deep down inside, wanted this. Just like I did.”

Hux didn’t respond, just bowing his head. It was all the confirmation Kylo needed.

Kylo tipped Hux’s face up. “You want this as much as I do, Hux. I know you do. Why deny yourself?”

He brushed a finger over Hux’s lips and the general’s eyelashes fluttered. There was a soft puff of air against Kylo’s hand as Hux exhaled slowly.

Quietly, Kylo murmured, “Maybe you should realize that some risks are worth taking.”

He leaned in and Hux did not back away. Their lips met, and this time there was none of the awkwardness of their first kiss, or the fierce urgency and battle for dominance that had followed afterwards. There was something impossibly fragile about this kiss, so painfully gentle.

Kylo wished that he could preserve this moment in amber forever, like one of those ancient fossils he had seen in shady planetside auctions, fragments of frozen time, captured in gold. He tried his best to memorize the feel of Hux’s soft lips against his, the smell of him, the way Hux was trembling against him, as if this was something he wanted so very badly but was utterly terrified of getting.

Finally they broke away from the kiss, just staring at each other in silence. Hux’s grey-green eyes were shiny. Kylo thought he saw tears.

The general began to shake his head. “No… _No_. This—this is—”

Kylo’s pulse quickened. He forced his tone to remain light as he said, “If you say this is a mistake, so help me, I _will_ kick your ass straight out of an airlock.”

Hux began to back away from Kylo. There was an utterly wretched look on his face—the look of a man being torn apart. “Don’t be a fool, Ren. Is this really worth it? Worth _dying_ for? Listen to logic—”

“Stop being such a _coward_ ,” Kylo said angrily.

“Better a coward than a _corpse_ ,” Hux spat back, eyes flashing. “You’ll thank me for this in the long run. Love is a lie. At the end of the day, it never lasts. Just forget me. Forget Millicent. Forget that anything ever happened between us. Forget that we were ever anything other than enemies.”

“No,” Kylo said, “I won’t do that. You can’t make me do that. Those things happened, Hux. And I’ll never forget them. Not until the day I die.”

“I hate it when you say such things,” Hux said, shaking his head, but he sounded more sad than angry.

He was blinking rapidly, eyes red and wet. However, despite his best efforts, one tear managed to slip out. It trailed slowly down his cheek, painting a stark line of wetness against his pale skin.

Hux looked so miserable. So tired, so worn down. In a soft murmur barely above a whisper, he said, “Please, Ren. Don’t make this any more painful than it already is. Just… let me go. For both our sakes. Let me go. _Please_.”

And it was the quiet defeat—the _pleading—_ in Hux’s tone that finally got through to Kylo.

In the silence that followed Hux’s words, Kylo took a deep breath.

He wanted so much to fight, to push Hux until he finally relented, but he could see just how much this was hurting Hux. And he couldn’t stand being the cause of any more of Hux’s pain, no matter how much it hurt him to just give up. Selflessness wasn’t in Kylo’s nature- he was more used to taking what he wanted- but for once, for the first time in his life, he would make an exception.

 “If that’s what you want… then so be it,” he said.

“Thank you,” Hux breathed, in a soft, barely audible whisper. Then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Kylo. Oh, Hux. What gigantic idiots you two are...
> 
> But hang in there, folks. The pain will be over soon. As a wise man's 'Sorry I Killed Your Son' greeting card once said: After the rain... comes the rainbow. Something tells me that rainbow should be coming soon... ~~like, maybe, next chapter?~~
> 
> -whistles innocently-


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, here comes the promised rainbow at long last. Please excuse the wait-- there is smut in this chapter and when it comes to smut, the time I take to write a single sentence increases exponentially by about a factor of ten.
> 
> Also, exciting news!! This fic now has fanart, like omg woah I'm so super honoured?? What have I done to deserve art from such talented, lovely people??? Come, let us all bask in how awesome they are: 
> 
> [kylo and millie + bathrobe!hux and kylo](http://theriseofthefirstorder.tumblr.com/post/143036855450/fanart-of-this-is-what-happens-when-monsters-fall) by [theriseofthefirstorder](http://theriseofthefirstorder.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [an illustration from chapter 7](http://sinningsquire.tumblr.com/post/143496532551/an-illustration-of-a-scene-in-chapter-7-of-the) by [sinningsquire](http://sinningsquire.tumblr.com/)
> 
> And a big thank you once again to everyone who betaed- you are all amazing and deserve all the thanks in the world, never forget it <3

Somehow, Kylo managed to make his way to the kitchens and steal Millicent her fish, even though he felt as though the heartbreak would surely overwhelm him.

He brought the fish back to his quarters, placing it on Millicent’s stolen saucer, before shuffling to his bed and slumping down onto it, face-first. He heard a loud meow, a soft patter of paws and then the noises of Millicent very enthusiastically polishing off the fish.

At least someone would be happy today.

Kylo lay on the bed, face buried in the bed covers, breathing heavily. He knew without looking that Hux’s coat was still on the floor, lying in a sad, crumpled heap in the corner of the room where Kylo had angrily thrown it away in a fit of rage.

Kylo would give anything to recapture even a smidgen of that righteous fury. He never thought he would say this, but he was beginning to think that things were actually better back when he thought that Hux had hated him. Throughout his life, Kylo had always had his fury to fall back on. To him, anger was an old, familiar friend. After all, it was easier being angry than being sad.

The truth that Hux did love him, but they still couldn’t be together because of some- some asinine _martyr complex_ Hux had? Well, it was enough to drive anyone mad.

In desperation born from a surfeit of despair, Kylo blindly held out one hand. Hux’s coat flew over to him and Kylo caught it, his fingers clenching hard into the lining of the coat. He could feel the fabric wrinkling under his hands and Kylo made an effort to loosen his grip.

He lifted himself up from the bedcovers only long enough to stuff the coat underneath his face before slumping back down. Strangely, even after all this time, the fabric still smelled like Hux— well, his aftershave, really. Kylo pressed his face into the coat and breathed in deeply, enjoying the pleasant, sharp scent. Abruptly, he was reminded of the way he had so carelessly mocked Hux’s fancy brand of aftershave for its stupid tagline back when he had invaded Hux’s refresher to spy on his toiletries. (‘For a spicy and sexy, uniquely masculine scent’? Really?) Well, just look at him now. Pressing his face into the coat, trying to inhale every single scent molecule of that kriffing aftershave. Probably he should be ashamed, but Kylo was too hung up on all his thoughts of Hux to give a hoot about his dignity.

Kylo knew that he had said he would let Hux go, for both of their sakes. Hux had looked so sad, so wretched and heartbroken. In that moment, when Kylo had been confronted with Hux’s misery and all his naked hurt, the decision to give Hux up had seemed, if not right, at least the best decision that could be made out of all the other bad ones.

Now Kylo was beginning to regret it intensely.

Was he right to give Hux up so easily? Kylo still thought that Hux was a fool and a coward. Hux’s lack of faith in Kylo’s ability to protect himself—or Hux—was frankly, rather insulting. They would be stronger together, not weaker. Why couldn’t Hux see that?

And yet, he couldn’t help but wonder if Hux was right. Kylo felt a little chill of trepidation as he remembered the way that Snoke had promised to let him do the honours of executing Hux, with such careless indulgence.

But surely Snoke wouldn’t order Hux killed now, not if Kylo made it clear that he no longer wished Hux dead? Hux was a brilliant general. He led the men well. He was ruthless, cunning, and utterly devoted to the First Order and its ideals. Even back in the days when Kylo had hated Hux, he had to admit that he had held a grudging sort of respect for the man.

But the doubt still niggled at Kylo. He wanted so much to believe that Hux was just being an overly paranoid bastard as usual—but some small part of him wondered if he was just deluding himself.

The mattress dipped a little as Millicent leapt up onto the bed. Kylo rolled over onto his back, draping Hux’s coat over himself like a blanket. He picked Millicent up and placed her on his chest. She nestled herself in the folds of the coat, purring happily.

A wry smile on his lips, Kylo flicked a finger against the tiny death star on Millicent’s collar, making it tinkle softly.

He was beginning to realize that for all that Hux strove not to let himself care, to cut himself off from all of his softer emotions, it made things so much worse when something did manage to get through all the barriers that he put up. When Hux cared, he cared _too_ deeply. It made him irrational, more prone to doing stupid things-- like trying to drive Kylo away for his own good.

“Now I know how you feel,” Kylo said to Millicent, dryly. “Looks like we’re both getting sent away for our own good. I’m overjoyed, really. Despite the fact that I can choke a man to death without even touching him, Hux obviously thinks I’m as capable of protecting myself as his tiny ginger cat.”

After a beat, he added, “No offence.”

Millicent continued purring, unoffended, and despite himself, Kylo felt his lips twitching into a soft smile.

Stroking Millicent’s fur, Kylo closed his eyes, concentrating on breathing in and out, on the soft feel of the cat’s fur against his fingers, instead of the thoughts that troubled his mind. He fell asleep to the soothing vibrations of Millicent’s quiet purring.

 

\---

 

Kylo was dreaming. He was in some kind of large meadow, dotted with small yellow and purple flowers. Behind him was a lake, the water a shimmering, vivid turquoise, fed into by a series of majestic waterfalls. The sky was a stunning shade of bright blue, dotted with small fluffy white clouds. Kylo thought he vaguely recognized the place as Naboo, his grandmother’s home planet.

For some reason, Kylo was dressed not in his usual black robes and his mask, but the soft, light tan robes that Ben Solo used to wear. Slightly troubled, Kylo fingered the soft material of his robe’s sleeve. Why was he wearing this? He had left that life behind a long time ago…

He looked up at the sound of a loud, happy meow.  Kylo turned and caught a flash of orange fur.

Oh. Millicent was here too. She was darting through the grass, chasing a bright blue butterfly. From the sound of her meows, she was obviously having the time of her life. It was all so very idyllic that Kylo could not help but smile a little at the sight.

“Oh, how sickeningly precious this all is,” came an all too familiar sarcastic drawl. “Only you would dream about my cat chasing butterflies, Ren. All that’s missing from this charming little tableau is a bloody rainbow.”

Kylo spun around to see Hux standing a few paces behind him, arms crossed. Unlike Kylo, he was still dressed in his normal all-black ensemble—complete with his usual military greatcoat. The expression on his face suggested that he had just sighted an extremely putrid rotting corpse—instead of his cat chasing a butterfly through a beautiful field of flowers.

“Hux?” Kylo said, puzzled and a little betrayed. It seemed that even when he was having a happy dream about Hux and Millicent, Hux still couldn’t stop being an asshole. Perhaps it was just too big a part of his core personality.

“What the hell are you doing in my dreams?” Hux said. There was an accusing note to his tone. He looked thoroughly displeased. “Didn’t you already agree to let me go? Tell me— what exactly is the value of your word, Ren, if you keep breaking it?”

Ah. Kylo understood now. This wasn’t a version of Hux that Kylo had dreamed up for himself. It was actual, real life Hux. No wonder he was being such an enormous asshole.

Kylo sent Hux a well-deserved glare. “What the hell am _I_ doing in your dreams? What the hell are _you_ doing in _my_ dreams! I didn’t do anything!”

Hux sighed, rolling his eyes with slow disdain before narrowing them into an answering glare. “Unless I somehow developed Force powers in my sleep, I’m fairly sure _you’re_ the one making this happen, Ren.”

Oh. It was probably the Force bond. Suddenly, it struck Kylo that this was an angle they had never considered before.

“Maybe this isn’t a bad thing,” he said.

Hux made an exasperated noise. “If you’re going to suggest that we start up some kind of illicit _dream relationship_ … perish the thought, Ren.”

“Why not?” Kylo said insistently, “Anything that happens in our dreams stays in our dreams. Nobody would know—”

“What about Snoke?” Hux cut in brusquely. “Isn’t he like you? A mind-reader?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then there is nothing for us to speak of,” Hux said harshly, “I stand by my earlier resolution. We’ve been over this before, Ren. You gave me your _word_. What was it that you said? _If that’s what you want, then so be it?_ ”

Kylo glared at him, fuming. “I know what I said, but…”

“ _But_?” Hux let out an aggravated sigh, swiping a hand through his hair. “There is no _but_! If I had known that you would be such a stubborn fool about this, I would never have told you the truth in the first place!”

“So you would have kept lying to me?” Kylo said angrily. “You would have been content to let me live out the rest of my life, thinking that you hated me?”

“If that’s what I needed to do,” Hux said, a pinched but resolute expression on his face.

Kylo let out a loud sigh, shaking his head in exasperation. Sometimes it felt as though Hux’s sole purpose in life was to bring Kylo frustration. “Stars, Hux. You’re incredibly messed up, you know that?”

Hux did not respond; he just glared at Kylo wordlessly.

“Why did you tell me the truth then?”

There was a brief moment of silence. Hux did not quite meet Kylo’s eyes as he muttered, “A moment of weakness on my part. A slip of the tongue. One which I now deeply regret.”

Kylo snorted loudly as something occurred to him. Arching his eyebrow, he said, tone knowing, “You were touched that I stood up for you, weren’t you? That was the cause of your little ‘ _slip of the tongue_ ’.”

Again, Hux did not quite meet Kylo’s gaze. There was a sneer on the general’s face as he said, “Don’t flatter yourself, Ren, you _delusional fool_. As if it isn’t bad enough that I have to be subjected to your inane prattle in the waking world, it seems that I am to suffer your pestilential presence in my dreams as well. Morning can never come soon enough.”

Kylo smirked. “You should know, Hux— when you get especially flustered, your insults suffer a noticeable drop in quality.”

Hux huffed, deliberately turning his back on Kylo and stalking off in the direction of the lake, shoulders stiff. Kylo followed him, Millicent padding along in his wake.

Hux flopped down angrily at the edge of the lake, glaring fixedly at the waterfalls as though they were mortally offending him with their very presence. He looked so out of place here, sitting cross-legged in a sunny meadow next to a beautiful lake, scowling and dressed in his all-black formal uniform. The look on his face was so dark that it was a wonder the flowers around him weren’t all wilting from the sheer funereal pall of the gloom he was exuding.

Kylo kicked off his boots before sitting down next to Hux. He dipped his feet into the lake, wriggling his toes, smiling at the crisp, cool sensation of the water against his skin. He was in this dream already— he might as well enjoy it.

Millicent loped over to Kylo and jumped onto his lap, where she settled herself, purring. Kylo grinned and stroked her head. “Hey, Millie.”

Smirking, he threw Hux a sly, sidelong glance. Very deliberately, in a tone so sweet it was almost oozing sugar, he said, “Awww. Look at her. All tired out from chasing that butterfly. Isn’t it just so _adorable_?”

Hux practically did a full body shudder.

“Stars,” he muttered, glowering impressively, “Try _disgusting_. Can you get any more unbearably mawkish, Ren? You do know that that thing isn’t really my cat, don’t you? It’s just a figment of your imagination. A fragment of a dream. It isn’t real.”

“So?” Kylo said, before picking Millicent up and unceremoniously dumping her onto Hux’s lap.

Hux let out a little cry of surprise before his hands automatically jerked up to catch hold of Millicent. He cradled her gently to his chest, shooting Kylo an accusing glare that plainly said _, how dare you mistreat my cat_?

Kylo smirked back triumphantly. He considered his point made.

For a while, they just sat there in silence, Kylo skipping pebbles that he picked up from the shallows of the lake and Hux petting Millicent, who was purring contentedly. Then Hux broke the silence.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, Ren.”

“Oh?” Kylo said.

“You’re trying to tempt me-” Hux waved a hand to encompass Kylo and all their surroundings, “-with all of this. It won’t work.”

Kylo smirked at him, languid and lazy. “Why? Because you’re a cruel, heartless monster? And you find all of this completely disgusting?” Kylo chuckled dryly. “It seems to me that _I’m_ not the delusional fool around here. You’re such a raging hypocrite, Hux.”

Hux shot him a sour look. “No better than you, Ren,” he bit out. His voice was snide as he said, “What happened to letting me go because that’s what I want? Changed your mind now, have you?”

Kylo smiled thinly. “Self-sacrifice may be one of your secret kinks, Hux, but I’m far less nobly inclined. I guess that makes us both hypocrites. There. We’re perfect for each other.”

Hux snorted, his head bowed, lips twitching upwards slightly as though he was reluctantly amused. His hand continued to stroke absently through Millicent’s orange fur. A few strands of Hux’s red hair had escaped the hold of his hair gel and had fallen across his face. Now the breeze caught them, lifting the strands away from his face, and Kylo’s gaze was drawn to Hux’s eyes—the clear grey-green of his irises was strangely arresting.

Kylo leaned in closer, and Hux drew a sharp breath, shaking a little, but he seemed frozen, unable to move an inch, trapped by Kylo’s fingers as they came to rest ever so lightly against his cheek.

“Don’t do it, Ren,” Hux said quietly. “You know we can’t. Why do you insist on putting us through all of this torment again?”

He shook his head, as if to clear it, and all of a sudden, just like that, his face crumpled. It was like watching a dam burst, Hux’s iron control buckling under the strain, all the repressed emotions pouring out in a volatile, agonized rush. Hux spoke with barely a pause in between, not even to draw air, “A clean break—that’s what I wanted, and yet you keep coming back, foiling me at every turn. I was such a fool, now I realize that. If only I had done this the way I should have, the way I told myself I would— burnt the bridges, salted the fields, made you _hate_ me, just like you did before. But I couldn’t— I couldn’t bear to let you go on thinking I hated you—” Hux made a strangled, incoherent noise of anger. His voice was trembling with emotion, “I was just too fucking weak. Stars, I can’t get anything right, can I? So much for being the best military strategist to ever graduate from the Academy. So much for being the youngest officer to ever make General in the history of the First Order. Useless. I’m so fucking useless—”

“Hux,” Kylo said, bewildered and unnerved by the flurry of emotions that Hux was going through, flickering between anger and sorrow and self-hatred in the span of a blink. He was struck by an uncomfortable sense of uncertainty. What did he know about comforting people? Most of the time _he_ was the one causing the hysterical breakdowns! Of all the times for Hux to have an emotional crisis… “What the hell are you going on about? You’re about the furthest thing from useless!”

So quietly that Kylo barely caught the words, Hux said, sotto voce, as if he was speaking to himself, “And now what have I done? Perhaps it’s already too late.”

He looked up suddenly, and their gazes locked. There was something almost pleading about the look in Hux’s eyes. “Just promise me one thing, Ren. If you really do love me—do the smart thing. Be practical. Make the right choice. I know I’m asking a lot of you. But please. For the first time in your life, _don’t be a fool_.”

“What’s too late?” Kylo demanded, fear racing through him. More urgently, “Hux, what aren’t you telling me?”

Hux just laughed, and there was a manic edge to it that Kylo didn’t like at all.

“Start making sense!” Kylo demanded, grabbing Hux by the shoulders and shaking the shorter man. But something told him it was already too late.

The birdsong he had been hearing since the dream started was gone, the once sunlit meadow abruptly gone as silent as the grave. Everything was darkening, like a storm was coming, black clouds spreading across the sky and blocking out the sun.

The dream was beginning to end. Even as Kylo gazed out towards the horizon, he could see that darkness was rapidly spreading across the landscape, consuming everything in its path, unstoppable and inevitable. Everything was dissolving, melting into formless black—the grass, the flowers, the waterfalls, Millicent…

“Like dreams, everything ends,” Hux said, smiling. There was something incredibly bittersweet about that smile. He leaned in, and the chaste kiss that he pressed to Kylo’s lips was so very tender, full of undisguised emotion— and that was when Kylo knew with absolute certainty that something was deeply wrong.

“I’m sorry, Kylo,” Hux said, and Kylo felt it like a punch to the gut.

_Kylo_. Not Ren. Hux had called him _Kylo_. He had never done that before.

Hux’s breath was a gentle caress against Kylo’s skin, a soft whisper, “I’ll see you on the other side.”

He pulled away. The last thing Kylo saw before the darkness snatched him away was the sad but resigned smile on Hux’s face.

 

\---

 

Kylo was out of his rooms before he had even finished putting on his mask. He had barely even looked at himself as he struggled into his robes and his boots. For the first time in his life, he found himself cursing the many complicated layers of clothing that made up his outfit. He could swear that every buckle and button he had to do up shaved five years off his lifespan. For all he knew, he was wearing everything inside out, but he didn’t care. The sense of unease that had plagued him in the dream had followed him into the waking world, except now it was multiplied hundredfold.

What the hell was Hux playing at? Dropping all those ominous, cryptic hints on Kylo like the huge drama queen that he was— and then just fucking off because of his 0600 alarm? And what the hell was up with that kiss? Hux had never ever initiated anything; he barely even tolerated Kylo touching him—and now he was kissing Kylo of his own volition, and not only that, but kissing Kylo so gently, calling him _Kylo_ , like he was saying some kind of goodbye… Oh, _fuck—_

Heart pounding, Kylo tore through the corridors, practically shoving people out of his way. He made it to Hux’s rooms in record time, wrenching the doors open with the Force without even a warning. If Hux was going to be mad at Kylo for invading his rooms yet again, he could be mad at him later—

But there was no sign of Hux. Kylo stared at Hux’s neatly made bed in dismay. The Force confirmed what he already knew: Hux wasn’t here. Stretching out his senses, Kylo focused on the bright spot in the periphery of his mind that he had come to realize was the general’s presence in the Force.

There. Hux was on the bridge.

Throwing caution (and his dignity) to the wind, Kylo sprinted all the way to the bridge, worry and anger speeding his steps. His knees nearly gave out from pure relief when he finally spotted Hux, safe and in one piece. The general was over by the viewport, staring out at the stars, his hands clasped behind his back in the picture-perfect pose of a soldier standing at ease.

Breathing heavily, Kylo stood, frozen, mind reeling. How in the name of the Force had Hux gotten here so quickly? He must have either fallen asleep in his uniform or sped through his morning routine in order to have gotten here before Kylo did. Yet, somehow the general still managed to look as perfectly pristine as ever. His face was devoid of emotion; his posture coolly composed. In other words, he looked as though this was all just another ordinary day for him, like he hadn’t just dropped a huge bombshell on Kylo in their shared dream and then fucked off because he was a huge fucking asshole like that.

Kylo was utterly livid. Did Hux derive some kind of sick pleasure from driving Kylo mad with worry? He wanted an explanation and he wanted it **now**.

Struggling to keep his pace to a walk instead of a run, Kylo stormed over to Hux. Despite his intention to confront Hux with as little fanfare and drama as possible, Kylo found himself striding right into Hux’s personal space, roughly grabbing the general by the coat lapels so as to force Hux to face him.

“You kriffing bastard,” he hissed, “You had better start explaining yourself _right now_.”

Hux, scowling, tried to shake Kylo’s grip off. “Unhand me, Ren,” he hissed. “This is neither the time nor the place for more of your theatrics!”

“You _will_ explain yourself, Hux,” Kylo snapped, ignoring Hux’s protests. “Or so help me, I will drag an answer out of you—”

“There isn’t anything to explain,” Hux cut in brusquely. With one last shake, he managed to dislodge Kylo’s fingers from his coat lapels, and he backed away, glaring furiously.

“Like kriffing hell there isn’t!” Kylo hissed. “What did you mean, _it’s already too late_?”

Hux looked away, his face becoming blank as the anger melted abruptly from his expression. In the heavy silence that followed Kylo’s question, there came the soft sound of someone very timidly clearing their throat.

Kylo spun around, his fury skyrocketing to homicidal levels.

A junior officer whose name Kylo could not be bothered to remember was staring at him and Hux warily, fear written clearly across his features. As Kylo turned his glare on him, the officer cowered and nearly took a step back before seeming to remember himself. He took a deep breath as if to steel himself, before blurting, “S-sorry, Lord Ren. Sir. I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

A vague memory came to Kylo’s mind of him choking this very same officer after the man had informed him of a failed search attempt for the missing BB-8 droid that held the pieces of the map that Kylo needed to find Skywalker. A better man than Kylo would probably have felt bad about ill-treating the lieutenant again, but Kylo’s conscience was entirely untroubled. He was a great believer in the stress relieving properties of shooting the messenger.

“Can’t you see that I’m _busy,_ Lieutenant? Leave. _Now_.” Kylo let his hand drop pointedly down towards his lightsaber. Meeting the officer’s frightened gaze, he said, voice low and dangerous, “That is… unless you have the sudden, burning desire for your corpse to decorate the floor of the Finalizer in many unrecognizable, charred pieces.”

The officer swallowed hard, but to his credit, he did not back away even in the face of potential brutal dismemberment. With the desperate, pleading tone of one caught between a rock and a hard place, he said, “Please, Lord Ren, it’s just that there’s been an urgent message. For you and General Hux—”

Kylo snarled in rage, “Whatever it is, it can kriffing well wait until I’ve finished my business with the general!” He raised his hand to Force-push the lieutenant away, but then the officer said, still shaking and white-faced, “It’s Supreme Leader Snoke, Sir.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kylo saw that Hux had stiffened. A sickening chill spread through Kylo, before settling at the pit of his stomach.

“He requested that you and General Hux attend him at your earliest convenience in the holoprojection chamber,” the lieutenant was saying, but the words barely registered in Kylo’s mind. He felt as though an overwhelming numbness was setting in, as though he was being frozen in carbonite. The Force was practically screaming at him— _warning_ , _danger_.

Kylo’s mind raced. Suddenly, he remembered the indulgent offer Snoke had made to him previously. And there was what Hux had said. _Perhaps it’s already too late…_ Hux had kissed Kylo like he was saying goodbye…

Oh stars. No, it couldn’t be— Could it? It _couldn’t_ …

“Ren,” someone was saying. “ _Ren!”_ Fingers snapped in front of Kylo’s face. “Focus!”

Kylo blinked, startled. His vision refocused, sharpening until he could see Hux’s face, mere inches away from his. One of Hux’s hands was on Kylo’s shoulders, as if to steady Kylo. When Hux saw that Kylo’s attention had returned, he retreated to a more impersonal distance, dropping his hand from Kylo’s shoulder.

Kylo felt the loss of contact like a physical ache. He had never known it was possible to long for someone’s touch as badly as he did in that moment.

“Hux,” Kylo started to say, voice shaking, but Hux cut him off with a brusque, “The Supreme Leader wants us. We must go.”

His face was coldly impassive, an emotionless mask. With a swift, sharp motion, he tugged his coat lapels into perfect straightness before turning to nod at the lieutenant. “You may consider your message delivered. Dismissed, Mitaka.”

The lieutenant snapped him a sharp salute. He turned to leave, but then he faltered and turned back to look at Hux. “Sir,” he began to say, voice tentative, something almost like contrition in his eyes, or perhaps concern— but Hux just scowled and waved him off. “I said _dismissed_ , Mitaka.”

Hux’s head was held high, his shoulders straight. Kylo had never thought of Hux as a warrior; since the day Kylo had first met the general, he had scorned Hux for being too weak, too soft—the very definition of an armchair general. But in that moment, Hux looked every inch a soldier going to war.

“Come, Ren,” Hux said, tone business-like and curt. “We shouldn’t keep Supreme Leader Snoke waiting.” Kylo’s throat worked and he opened his mouth to protest, but Hux said, his voice steel, eyes flashing, “We must do our duty—” his voice softened, some of the harshness melting away from it, “—no matter the consequences or cost.”

For one crazy moment, Kylo considered knocking Hux out, throwing him over his shoulder and then making a run for the hangar bay—but Hux was already striding off in the direction of the holoprojection chamber, greatcoat flaring out behind him, and Kylo had no choice but to follow.

When the doors to the holoprojection chamber hissed open, Hux strode through without a pause. Kylo followed him at a far more hesitant pace.

The first thing Kylo noticed was Snoke’s larger than life hologram. The Supreme Leader was sitting upon his throne as usual. The hood he wore threw his wizened features into shadow, but did not quite manage to hide the thin, sharp smile that played upon his pale, scarred lips.

“Lord Ren. General Hux,” Snoke greeted. “Good of you to finally join us.”

At his words, someone stepped out from the shadows. With some surprise, Kylo realized that it was the officer he had very nearly choked to death for insulting Hux.

Michaels was in surprisingly good shape for someone who had almost asphyxiated the day before. He had probably spent the night in a bacta tank. However, Kylo was pleased to see that there were still some faint bruises purpling the skin of his throat, not entirely hidden by the collar of Michaels’ uniform.

“Lord Ren,” Michaels said placidly, nodding to Kylo. However, when he turned to Hux, there was a sharp, unpleasant smile on his face that Kylo hated. What he hated even more was the way that Michaels said, with pointed emphasis, “ _Hux_.”

“Michaels,” Hux greeted evenly, with far more courtesy than Michaels deserved. But then he suddenly froze, gaze fixing upon a point on Michaels’ arm, a stricken expression ghosting across his face for a split second before his features melted once more into a mask of bland, coolly professional civility.

Kylo followed his gaze, and with a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling, he realized what exactly it was had rattled Hux’s composure so badly earlier: on Michaels’ left sleeve were two black armbands that were edged in silver—the rank insignia for a General of the First Order.

“Lord Ren, it is my pleasure today to introduce you to the new co-commander of the Finalizer,” Snoke said, smiling thinly. “I understand that there was a minor… misunderstanding between the two of you the day before, but I trust that you and General Michaels will be able to move past it. I have high hopes that this will be the start of a long and successful working relationship.”

A dull sense of dread overtook Kylo at Snoke’s words.

An easily replaceable cog in Snoke’s war machine, that’s what Hux had called himself. It seemed that he had been right all along.

Hux’s face was devoid of emotion, but there was so much fear and despair roiling in him, so strong that Kylo was sure he would have been able to sense them even had they not shared a Force bond. For all his brave words, Hux was so very afraid, and Kylo’s heart broke a little thinking of how Hux had still held his head high and walked straight to what he must have known would be his execution. At heart, Hux was still utterly loyal to the war machine that was the First Order—the war machine he so fervently believed in, but which had used him so cruelly and which would now be the instrument of his ultimate destruction.

“Now that the introductions are over, there is one last point of business we need to put in order before we move on,” Snoke said. Smiling sharply, with casual malice, Snoke met Kylo’s eyes with uncanny accuracy through the visor of his helmet. Voice soft, he said, “General Hux’s services are no longer required. Kill him.”

Kylo stood, frozen, utterly paralyzed.

Beside him, Hux was trembling ever so minutely, but his head was still held high, facing Snoke’s smirking visage without a trace of fear in his eyes.

Kylo could feel the terror that clouded Hux’s mind, but most of all what Hux felt was resignation, and a deep regret that it was Kylo who would have to suffer the most from all of this. He heard Hux’s desperate, fearful thoughts, as clearly as if they were his own— _Why isn’t he doing anything?_ _Damn Ren and his fool heart…_ _Please, whoever, whatever is out there—fate, destiny, the Force, whatever—let him make the right choice. Let him do the smart thing. I know I’ve never believed—but he does—and you—you have to keep him safe… you have to. Please…_

Weaker, a soft flutter against Kylo’s mind, as if Hux was trying his best to restrain himself from thinking it, came the thought— _I love him. Stars. I wish I didn’t, but I love him so much._

Then, lonely and filled with desperate yearning, _I wish I could see his face._

“Why are you hesitating, Lord Ren?” Snoke said. The thin, sharp smile had not left his face. “Just a month ago, you were practically _begging_ me to let you execute the general. Now I’m granting you your wish. Go ahead, Lord Ren. Kill him.”

There was a knowing slyness to his tone that told Kylo what he had suspected from the start. Snoke _knew_. This was a test.

Hux was still praying in his head, a desperate, jumbled stream of nonsensical entreaties to a mystical force that he did not even believe in. He no longer feared for himself, it seemed. Only for Kylo Ren, _the stupid, suicidal idiot with an astronomical lack of self-preservation skills._

“No,” Kylo said, the single resolutely spoken word echoing loudly in dull silence of the holoprojection chamber. He reached up to undo his helmet, shaking his hair free from his face and tossing the helmet away carelessly in one smooth motion. It hit the metal deck with a sharp clang.

Hux was staring at Kylo in naked horror, his carefully cultivated mask of composure shattered.

An all too familiar look of fury was descending upon Snoke’s features. “Are you disobeying a direct order from me?”

“Ren, just do it,” Hux hissed, anger and desperate worry clear in the tightness of his voice and the clench of his jaw. Hux was practically screaming at Kylo over the Force bond. Kylo had no idea if Hux even knew what he was doing, but he could hear Hux’s thoughts, frenzied and agonized, as he begged, _Please just do it, Ren, please don’t be a fool, don’t disobey him, you idiot, you huge idiot—_

Kylo ignored him.

“No,” Kylo repeated. “I won’t kill Hux. He’s a good general. He leads the troops well. He’s utterly loyal to the First Order, and invaluable to our cause. None of what we achieved would have been possible without his drive. His _vision_. Starkiller was _his_ brainchild.  The weapon may have failed in the end, but the results it achieved while it was functional are undeniable. Executing him would be a grave mistake.”

“General Hux is useless to us now,” Snoke said harshly, “Do not allow yourself be swayed by foolish sentiment, Lord Ren. How many times have I told you that you must resist the call of the Light? I would have tolerated a merely physical dalliance, but this… emotional attachment you have to the general? It’s dangerous, _misguided_ , a weakness—”

In one smooth motion, Kylo drew his lightsaber from his belt, ignited it and threw it. Guided by the Force, the crackling blade of red plasma spun through the air in a graceful arc before embedding itself in Michaels’ chest.

The newly minted general made a choked off sound of surprise before collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, a look of shocked betrayal on his face. Kylo’s lightsaber was back in his hand before Michaels’ corpse even hit the deck.

“It seems to me that General Hux is no longer so useless,” Kylo said, smiling thinly.

Kylo could feel Hux’s horrified disbelief echoing through the Force. Snoke’s fury at Michaels’ death was a bright shock of pain inside Kylo’s head.

However, Kylo did not deactivate his lightsaber. Instead, he held it out in a defensive stance, and from the way Snoke’s eyes had narrowed, Kylo knew that his master had not missed the implications of Kylo’s choice not to put his weapon away.

“Consider very carefully the consequences of what you are doing, Lord Ren,” Snoke said, voice low and dangerous.

“You can try to find another replacement for Hux,” Kylo said as he favoured Snoke with a wide, pleasant smile. “But I’ll just kill everyone you send.”

_Are you **insane** , Ren? _Hux was thinking very deliberately at him, _Do you have a **death wish**?_

_The same could be said for you, Hux,_ Kylo thought back nastily, and he felt Hux’s shock at hearing Kylo’s voice inside his own head. _Now, just shut up and let me try to save your life._

Taking a deep breath, he blocked off their connection, cutting off all the rest of Hux’s undoubtedly extremely vehement protests.

“And if I send someone to kill General Hux?” Snoke said. “One of your fellow Knights of Ren, perhaps? What will you do then? Will you still defend him?”

“I will,” Kylo answered immediately, without hesitation. “And if somehow, by some miracle, whoever you send does succeed in killing him, rest assured I will _never_ forgive you for that. I will _never_ forget _._ If Hux dies, you and I are _done_. I will make one thing clear now. Hux’s safety is non-negotiable. Either Hux and I both serve you— or neither of us serves you at all.”

Snoke’s anger was incandescent, a deep, painful throb at the back of Kylo’s mind. Kylo should have been cowed by Snoke’s towering rage, but instead, all Kylo felt was a deadly state of calm.

Kylo had no head for politics. He was not like Hux, adept at manipulating people. Kylo excelled in physical combat, not negotiations and mind games. That was definitely more of Hux’s arena. But now Kylo found himself in the curious position of bartering for Hux’s life with his own loyalty.

He could only hope that he would be able to pull this off, for both their sakes.

“You _dare?_ ” Snoke said in a low snarl, _“_ You would turn against me because of this man? Are you just going to throw everything we’ve worked so hard for away? What about your grandfather’s legacy? Your vengeance against the Jedi?”

“I do very much want the Jedi dead. I still do believe in the cause we’ve been working together to achieve. I certainly won’t enjoy having to betray the First Order, but if you force my hand, I _will_ go back to Skywalker and the Resistance.” Kylo paused for a beat, to let that threat sink in, before continuing, “By agreeing to spare Hux’s life, you can retain both your best men. But if you don’t, you can be assured of one thing—I will not rest until the First Order has been utterly destroyed. Until _you_ have been utterly destroyed. That’s a promise. I don’t want to do it, but that is not to say that I won’t do whatever I have to in order to protect what is mine.” Meeting Snoke’s eyes unflinchingly, Kylo said, “I may be your apprentice, Snoke, but I am _not your slave_.”

Dark talons raked through Kylo’s mind, Snoke’s fury channelled into a brutal mental assault that sent Kylo reeling. Kylo’s lightsaber fell from his numb fingers. The blade deactivated with a hiss and the hilt clattered to the deck with a loud clang of metal. Kylo staggered and he would have fallen to his knees but for Hux, who rushed forward to catch him. Kylo sagged back gratefully into his arms. “Ren!” Hux was saying, voice hushed and panicked, “Are you alright?”

“You’re not my only acolyte, _Ben Solo,_ ” Snoke snarled, rising from his throne. He loomed over them both, larger than life. His voice was thunderous, “Do not forget who it was who made you the man you are today! What I gave to you, I can just as easily take away.” Snoke sneered. His tone was contemptuous as he spat, “Did you actually think that you could _bargain_ with me? Like I’m some _two-bit Outer Rim junk dealer_? You vastly overestimate your importance to me. The other Knights of Ren would give anything to be in your position, and yet you would just throw it away to save this man?” Snoke shook his head, as if gravely disappointed. “After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?”

Snoke’s voice softened, assuming more of the gentle, paternal tone that Kylo had heard from him throughout his childhood, “However, I will consider overlooking this moment of folly of yours, if you make amends now. You are still my chosen apprentice. The master of my Knights. I will go easy on you, Lord Ren, if you kill the general now. It is still not too late for you to prove yourself worthy of my forgiveness. You’ve already killed a father—surely it shouldn’t be too hard now for you to kill a lover.”

Kylo straightened up, but did not pull away from Hux. Even now, the unadulterated fury of Snoke’s mental assault still hurt. However, Kylo drew strength from Hux’s physical presence and the warm hum of the general’s mind.

Voice resolute, he declared, “I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. It’s either Hux and me. Or neither of us at all.”

There was unmistakable threat in Snoke’s tone as he said, “This is your last chance. Remember, I can just as easily find a new apprentice as I can find a new general.”

Kylo grinned at him, baring his teeth. “Go ahead then,” he said daringly, “Kill me. If I’m as replaceable as you say… kill me now. Crush my mind. That’s within your power, isn’t it?”

Despite all his outward bravado, Kylo was utterly terrified inside. He was staking both his and Hux’s lives on the gamble that Snoke would consider Kylo’s loyalty too valuable to lose. The Supreme Leader had always called Kylo his most gifted pupil, the perfect embodiment of the Dark and the Light. Kylo was taking a gamble that Snoke would rather keep him and Hux alive as each other’s political hostages, rather than lose both the First Order’s most powerful figureheads in one fell swoop, with no replacements in sight.

For a very long while, Kylo waited in trepidation for the pain to start. For Snoke to tear mercilessly through his mental defences and rip into his undefended psyche. For stormtroopers to rush into the room, arresting him and Hux to bring them to Snoke for torture or execution.

However, none of that happened. Instead, Snoke began to laugh. He kept laughing, high and chilling, on and on, seemingly with no intention to stop. Despite his resolution to let none of his fear show, Kylo’s clenched fists began to tremble.

He felt a soft touch on his left hand. Kylo loosened his fist enough that Hux could wind his fingers through Kylo’s, clasping their hands together in a silent gesture of support. It was such a small thing, but the warmth it put into Kylo’s heart made the unbearable agony of standing in front of Snoke, helpless to do anything but wait whilst keenly aware all the while that their lives hung in the balance, just that much easier to bear.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Snoke’s laughter came to an end. He slowly settled back down on his throne, his hands steepled as he gazed down at them.

“Well played, my apprentice,” he said, smiling thinly. “Well played _indeed_. It seems that I underestimated your cunning… and your attachment to the general…” Snoke paused for a beat. “But now I see things clearly.”

Snoke’s gaze swept across the two of them, lingering on Hux and Kylo’s linked hands for a moment before he locked eyes with Kylo. His voice was pleasant, but Kylo did not think for a second that the pleasantness was genuine. “For now, things will remain as they were. You may both continue your service to the First Order. It’s a good thing that both you and the general are such ardent believers in our shared cause, and I have always believed in keeping all the allies that I can…”

Snoke’s voice was soft and chillingly intense, “But rest assured, Lord Ren, I will be watching you and General Hux in the coming days with great interest. I will be watching _very closely_.”

With one last sharp smile and a negligent wave of Snoke’s pale, gnarled hand, the hologram winked off.

Kylo heaved a great sigh of relief, all the tension sagging from his shoulders in an instant. Hux released Kylo’s hand, and Kylo tried not to feel hurt by that. Of course it was only logical for Hux to do so- the danger had passed and Snoke was gone- there was no need for Hux to keep comforting him. Not to mention, Hux was probably utterly furious with him right now.

He turned to face Hux, mentally bracing himself. “I already know what you’re going to say. I was a fool. A sentimental idiot. I threw my whole future away just to buy you a little more time, and now Snoke’s going to have _both_ of us tortured and killed—”

Kylo’s speech was abruptly cut off when Hux roughly yanked him down and their lips crashed together. Hux kissed him furiously, desperately, nails digging almost painfully into Kylo’s scalp. He kissed like he was afraid that Kylo would disappear the moment he stopped. It was so full of such fervent passion that it left Kylo feeling a little weak in the knees—which was kind of ironic given that even Supreme Leader Snoke at his most threatening couldn’t reduce Kylo to such a mess… and yet somehow, with just one (admittedly mind-blowingly good kiss) Hux did.

“You’re such a fool, Ren,” Hux said, in between gasps for air, “Such a soft-hearted, suicidal fool. You’re right. You’ve probably just have doomed us both. And yet I can’t help but love you for it.”

A great surge of warmth lit up Kylo’s chest until he felt like he could burst from it, and he responded by drawing Hux into a kiss again. It was a long time before they finally pulled apart. By that time they were both panting heavily, chests heaving, and Kylo was already half-hard. Hux’s hair was a mess from where Kylo had been running his fingers through it, the red strands falling all over his face. His lips were kiss-swollen, a startling shade of red. His grey-green eyes were wide, pupils dilated.

In that moment, Kylo was struck by a desperate desire to see Hux unclothed and out of control, crying out with unrestrained pleasure as Kylo took him apart.

He kissed Hux, sloppy and open-mouthed, nimbly slipping one of his hands beneath Hux’s breeches to palm at Hux’s length while his other hand moved to undo Hux’s belt.

Hux pulled away from the kiss, which made Kylo glare at him, annoyed.

“Ren, wait—what are you doing?” Hux said.

Kylo gave Hux an extremely unimpressed look. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

He palmed at Hux a little harder to demonstrate.

Hux rolled his eyes, snorting. “Triumphant, life-affirming victory sex?” he said, deadpan. “I meant—why the hell are we doing this _here?_ In the holoprojection chamber where I was nearly executed? You do realize that Snoke could call back any moment and catch us going at it in the room where he projects his holographic throne? Something tells me he might take offence to that. _”_

It was probably quite telling about their moralities and how twisted they both were that the dead body that was lying just ten feet away from them wasn’t amongst Hux’s list of objections, nor did it faze Kylo in the least. Perhaps this callous indifference towards the man he had so casually murdered should have troubled Kylo, but he had long ago accepted the fact that he just wasn’t a very good person.

“Well, I rather thought that was part of the appeal,” Kylo drawled, a sly smirk playing on his lips. “Showing Snoke that we don’t care. That he can’t control us or keep us apart. That I’m yours. And you’re mine. And he can’t do anything about it. Our latest act of defiance.”

“Oh, Ren. You _sap_ ,” Hux said, but Kylo could feel the happiness Hux felt at his words bubbling through their bond.

As he trailed kisses down Hux’s neck, Kylo whispered against Hux’s skin, “You know what I want, Hux? I want to suck you off on top of that platform where Snoke’s holographic throne appears.” He put his hand into Hux’s pants again, pressing against Hux’s hardness. “What do you think about that? Me sucking you off on his throne?”

By the way Hux responded, letting out a loud moan as he hardened even further against Kylo’s hand, that was an extremely enthusiastic ‘yes’.

They staggered towards the platform, still wrapped up in each other, Kylo divesting Hux of his belt and breeches along the way. Kylo dropped to his knees almost immediately, yanking Hux’s boxers down with such force that it was a wonder the fabric hadn’t torn.

Kylo luxuriated in every filthy whimper and moan he managed to wring out of Hux with each swipe of his tongue, each hollowing of his cheeks. The pressure in his own breeches was getting too much, so Kylo reached down to undo his belt, slipping one hand in to touch himself. Hux was shaking, face red and eyes squeezed shut. He had one hand on Kylo’s shoulder in a vice-like grip, fingers digging into the soft cotton of Kylo’s robes. He raised his other hand up to cover his face, as if to hide the expression of debauched pleasure on it away from the world.

Kylo would not have that. In that moment, Hux had never looked more beautiful and Kylo didn’t want him to cover himself up, as if he had something to be ashamed of.

One of the perks about sharing a Force bond was that even though Kylo’s mouth was otherwise occupied, he could speak to Hux telepathically. _Open your eyes, Hux. Look at me._

Hux’s eyes flew open, his gaze locking with Kylo’s.

_Ren?_ Hux thought, soft and tentative at first, unsure. Then firmer, with some wonderment, _I can hear your thoughts_. _Is this the… Force bond thing?_

Kylo hummed around Hux’s length, sucking harder in response and wringing a low moan out of Hux. He sent Hux a feeling of agreement, and then an image of Hux as Kylo saw him.

_You’re so beautiful, Hux,_ Kylo thought at him, _I don’t want you to hide. I don’t want you to ever have to be afraid again. Snoke may be my master, but you’re the only man I will ever love. You mean everything to me. No matter what the world throws at us, know this. I’ll be by your side, and I’ll protect you._

Instead of playing it off with an insult like he usually did, Hux responded with a surge of fierce joy over the bond. Kylo breathed in deeply through his nose before taking Hux in deeper, almost to the base, pushing down the urge to gag with the same iron determination that he used to overcome every obstacle that life dared to throw in his way.

He could sense that Hux was close now. The general was shaking with need, pupils blown so wide that they nearly eclipsed the light grey-green of his iris. Hux’s hips were bucking, sharp but hastily aborted movements; Kylo could tell that Hux wanted so badly to move, to just abandon all semblance of control and use Kylo’s mouth in the filthiest of ways. However, he was restraining himself, forcing himself to be still, to wait— Kylo didn’t need the Force to tell him that this uncharacteristic gentleness was born from Hux’s concern for him.

It lit a fire in him, knowing that Hux cared so much, and Kylo deliberately sucked Hux off harder, focusing on the head, trying to give him the release he so desperately yearned for.

_You’re so beautiful like this,_ Kylo thought at Hux. _I want to give you your own throne. I want to make the galaxy kneel at your feet. For you, I would destroy a thousand worlds. All for you, Hux. Just for you._

Hux came with a choked off cry of pleasure, his fingers tightening on Kylo’s shoulder. Hux’s release came flooding into his mouth, the taste of it too bitter to be entirely pleasant, but Kylo swallowed nonetheless, relishing the way the sight of him doing it sent Hux soaring to even greater heights of pleasure.

Eventually, Hux began to soften, and Kylo slid his mouth off him before turning his attention back to himself. It took no more than three firm strokes before Kylo reached climax too, and he spilled in his hand with a cry. The wetness had soaked into his briefs, a sodden mess which promised to become extremely uncomfortable later. However, Kylo was too lost in pleasure to care.

Sometime during Kylo’s climax, Hux had sunk to his knees too and pulled Kylo against him. Kylo’s head was pillowed on the general’s shoulders, and Hux was gently stroking one hand through his hair. They stayed like that for a while, in a contented silence broken only by the soft huffs of their breaths.

“You know,” Kylo drawled, “For someone who hates disobedience so much, you sure seemed to enjoy our little act of defiance just now.”

“Hmmm,” Hux hummed thoughtfully, with easy contentment. “I suppose I did.” He smirked, “I’ll always be an Imperial at heart, but I guess there’s something to be said for a little bit of… rebellion in our lives.”

Kylo looked at him sideways, eyebrows raised. “Did you just make a shitty pun about the Empire and the Rebellion?

“No,” said Hux, smug, “I just made an _excellent_ pun about the Empire and the Rebellion.”

“Ha ha,” Kylo said dryly, “You’re a regular comedian, Hux. You should tell that one to all your Stormtroopers. It’ll be a real hit. They’ll be telling it in the cantinas for months.”

Hux laughed.

“You’re such an idiot, Ren,” Hux said, but the look in his eyes was tender and his voice was fond. Kylo could sense the warmth of his feelings shining bright and unabashed, through their bond. _I love you._

Kylo smiled, brushing the back of a finger against Hux’s cheek. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I couldn't resist. Like father, like son ;D
> 
> Also, since this fic is ending soon, I'm doing a little poll to decide what I should write next. Check it out [ here](http://huxology.tumblr.com/post/143641231103/hi-fic-readers).


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